Kim Eternal
by Binkmeister
Summary: She can do anything, but can she do it forever? Kim desperately seeks a way to be with the one she loves, and mend a world that has lost hope. This story is now complete.
1. Chapter 1

Stars shone brightly in the crisp spring air, competing with the waxing moonlight to light Kim's path up Mt. Middleton. The snows had mostly melted and the pines gave off a fresh scent that should have lifted anyone's spirits, but Kim barely noticed as she trudged up the scree slope. Monique quietly shadowed Kim's footsteps, watching her friend anxiously.

It was almost midnight. Ron's message was due any time.

The two women crested a small rise that led onto a grassy plateau. The back of the mountain shielded them from most of the wind as they settled onto the damp grass, legs crossed underneath their homespun dresses. The stars blinked above; Kim thought they seemed so very far away tonight.

Monique broke the silence. "Have you told Ron about Josh?" Staring up, Kim merely sighed and shook her head. "Don't you think you should?" Monique asked.

Another sigh. "I don't want him to worry," Kim said softly. "You know how he can get."

The ladies sat in the night's stillness, waiting. They both had ample practice at waiting and the delay didn't bother them. Kim's 16-year-old visage pointed up, eyes closed, while Monique's teenage eyes watched her friend. The stars continued wheeling around the sky and the moon set behind Mt. Middleton before Kim heard a soft voice in her head say, "Incoming message from Ronald Stoppable ready for replay."

Kim held out her left hand, bare palm up. Monique was here, so she'd play it externally for her friend's benefit. "Play message," she whispered.

Ron's miniature windswept face glowed into existence a few inches above Kim's outstretched hand. The playback was perfect, both women could see his image clearly. Looking around, Ron's facsimile eyes locked onto whatever had recorded him and he began speaking. From Kim's point of view, Ron was looking directly into her eyes, into her heart, and she feld the familiar rush of adrenaline on seeing his face.

"That time again, KP," he said, the words echoing against the mountain rising behind the two seated women. "I got your earlier message, had some time to replay it a coupla times. Glad to hear you're doing good, real glad. Um, you sounded pretty peppy, so I guess Josh must be doing something right." Kim gasped involuntarily, knowing she'd gone overboard with her last message to Ron, who continued, "He better take totally excellent care of you, or 300 light years away or not I'll stomp over and give him a taste of some monkey kung fu." This time a small sob escaped from Kim's lips. She'd give anything to have him try.

"So there's been some developments," he continued after a pause. "Some of the people in white coats - not that they really wear white coats, ya know, but still I always think of them that way - have been playing and they've got some cool stuff. The bad news is, they haven't been able to do anything about the ship's drive, and the fuel's all evaporated anyway, and we don't have any way of making more. So I guess that's it.

"We're stuck on Outland, pretty much forever unless somebody can come to get us. Which isn't likely."

Silent tears streamed down Kim's cheek. She expected the message, especially after all this time, but it was still difficult hearing it spoken so matter-of-factly. She was sure he'd practiced that over and over.

Ron's miniature face contorted momentarily, then continued too quickly. "But don't get bummed, we knew it was a possibility, right? I mean, we had some time together before I left, not that it was enough time, but we had more than most people get, ya know? And we're both alive and healthy, we've got that going for us, and... oh, hell, Kim, I can't do this." His hands appeared suddenly, wiping across his brow, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm really sorry, but I just am not having a good time keeping this up. I gotta confess something. Yori and I, um, we, well, we never really got together like I told you." Kim's head snapped up and her bright green tear-rimmed eyes bored into Ron's tiny holographic gaze, not that the recording would notice. "I just told you that so you wouldn't worry about me. I knew it would hurt and all, but I figured since we couldn't be together, you'd feel better if you weren't worrying about me being OK and all. So I, uh, fibbed."

Ron was right - it i had /i hurt. After he'd told her, so long ago, that he was finding solace in Yori's arms, Kim couldn't tell which was worse... her Ron in another woman's arms, or Ron suffering silently and pining for her, day after day, year after year, with no hope of reunion. After much thought, she figured he was probably right, so she'd made up a story about finding solace with Josh Mankey. Ron had taken it well, although she knew it had hurt him greatly.

She had always wondered if it was the right thing to do.

Ron's hologram wiped his nose and went on, "In fact, the colony has been losing people steadily. We're down to less than two hundred. Yori..." he began, choking up a little, before starting again, "Yori was one of the early ones to fall. She's been gone a long time, Kim. I think my refusal cut her bad, and she just faded before falling. I feel really guilty about that, almost as guilty that I lied to you." His voice became strident. "But I want you to know I really wanted you to be OK with me gone. Yeah, it was stupid for me to volunteer to join an interstellar mission, but I thought it was gonna be a puddle jump. Just a couple of thousand years and we'd be back together. And when things went wrong and we couldn't get back, and the other ships and colonies had the same problems, well, I have a pretty good idea what I mean to you, since that's what you mean to me. So I had to do something. I hope it was the right thing.

"Please tell me you forgive me. I love you." His eyes, tiny, pleaded with Kim for solace.

Kim couldn't take any more. Her hand shook until the image began gyrating in the dark, autostabilizers failing to compensate for her shaking. She clenched her hands, and Ron's message cut off. Kim wrapped her arms around her stomach and felt herself falling forward, before Monique's quick arms caught her. A ragged rush of air filled Kim's lungs, followed by an anguished, piercing scream that bounced and echoed off the mountain and up into the night.

Her lungs and throat raw, Kim continued gasping and crying in great, animal heaves. Her mind circled closer and closer, round and round, remembering only the farewell long ago when Ron told her he wanted to go, asking her to come too. The trip to another star would last thousands of years, but that wasn't a problem.

After all, they were immortal.

Every human was immortal. That gift, that curse was bestowed by Professor Dementor's mad labs, the day the anagathic spray was released. Six billion humans rendered deathless, ageless, without knowledge or consent. The gift was obvious: life everlasting, for everyone. The curse was more subtle, but no less vital than the gift. Every human stopped aging, their body processes locked at the instant they inhaled Dementor's spray. Sixteen year old cheerleaders stayed sixteen forever. Children remained children, pregnant women would never give birth. No woman would, ever again. This was the last generation of humans, albeit a far more prolonged generation than ever before. But still, the last.

Human nature being predictable, half the human race had fallen within a decade. Wars, greed, hunger, anger, frustration, self-pity, and sheer recklessness winnowed the human race to those most able to deal with their newfound longevity. Most of the children, the younger ones who required constant supervision, fell within a few centuries. The old and infirm, locked into dying bodies that never died, could not bear it and simply passed away. No matter how much research and science threw at the problem, nothing could be reversed. The anagathic lock was irreversible; even clones didn't mature. Eventually the human race came to accept that the pinnacle of human evolution was over, and the long remaining years were the twilight of the race.

Kim and Ron spent a busy pair of centuries helping keep and restore peace, helping those who had trouble helping themselves. Their 16-year-old bodies stayed energetic and resilient, and wounds healed quickly. In many ways, it was the highlight of Kim's life... she had a mission in life, and a life companion to share it with. Even though they couldn't legally marry, or ever have children, they shared their lives as as a steadfast couple. When civilization finally began to steady after the upheaval of life everlasting, starships were developed using the most advance science and materials the one billion humans of earth could muster. They were meant to visit terran-like worlds and establish colonies. In any society without immortality, they would've been generation ships, travelling at ten percent of lightspeed; but immortal humans could simply wait. A journey would take a thousand years or more, but the crew would never age, never die.

Ron wanted to go on such a journey. He begged Kim to come, but she refused. Their arguments were epic, but in the end Ron stepped through the door as Kim watched from a monitor in the launch facility. He was supposed to be gone on a single mission that would last three thousand years.

Kim's ragged gasps eased until she was simply sniffling and crying. She'd wanted to break that monitor, she remembered. Break it so she wouldn't have to ever know the haunted look on Ron's face as he boarded the starship. She knew it was killing him to stay on earth, and it was killing him just as much to leave Kim. They'd had two lifetimes of living together, loving, and there was no reason to expect anything different for the long future ahead.

Until the ships failed and could not be fixed. Too many vital people had fallen to recreate the mighty vessels.

The millenia since Ron's departure were a pale ghost of their time together. Kim still helped, walking the earth and helping repair the damage the human race had done to the planet. She helped spread foodplants and spread iron-eating bacteria that chewed away the ugly cities of her ancestors. She helped people when they needed a hand, or a shoulder to cry on. She and many others straightened up the blue planet until it became beautiful once again, unmarred by cities and roads and pollution. Only rarely did she acknowledge she was writing her race's epitaph.

Kim always came back to where Middleton had been, especially on those nights every few hundred years when colony messages were sent and received. She always came back to where she and Ron had spent their time, back before she had personally helped disassemble the town.

Her face slick with snot and tears, Kim leaned on Monique's strong shoulder and tried to calm her tortured mind. She was fifty thousand years old, and couldn't get over the relationship she'd had in her first two centuries of life. The funny thing was, she didn't want to get over it. Of the thousand thousand humans left on earth, the only person she wanted to be with was Ron.

The stars shone down from so very far away. Sniffling slightly, Kim closed her eyes and let darkness take her while Monique stroked her long red hair, gently ruffled by the constant mountain breeze.

Dawn wasn't far off when Kim pried open her crusty eyes. Her head lay in Monique's lap while her friend sat stiff-backed and cross-legged in a meditation pose. Kim lifted her head and Monique opened her eyes. "Any better?" Monique asked with a worried tone.

"Dunno," Kim croaked.

Monique sighed and shifted slightly. "You're going to have to tell him that Josh fell thousands of years ago," she remonstrated. "He deserves to know."

"Yep. I know."

The women sat in the chill pre-dawn air for a while. "Hey, you didn't finish the message. Wonder if there was anything else."

Kim looked back down at her bare hand. Somewhere in there was the rest of Ron's message. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering strength, opened them, and said, "Resume playback."

"I love you," Ron's simulacrum said again earnestly from above Kim's palm. His eyes clouded for a moment, and with an obvious effort of will he looked back up and smiled. "I always have, and I always will.

"OK, enough of the heavy, back to the fun stuff I was talking about. The white coats may not have managed to fix the drive, but one of the little gadgets they dreamed up is nifty. They can record your feelings and let somebody else play 'em back. I've got a feeling you already know how I feel about you, if ya know what I mean, but maybe this'll help. The instructions for making these 'feelies' is in the main squirt, they tell me. But I've included my recording here. Just say 'tickle me' and it'll trigger.

"I guess that's about it. Even though we're not together, I'm not alone. OK, that's kinda mystical and all, but it's how I... feel. So take care of yourself, and send me a squirt when the next upload happens.

"All my love, KP." Ron's image winked out, replaced by a small yellow sphere that pulsed slightly. Kim blinked and looked at Monique in the tenuous predawn light.

Monique nodded. "Do it, girl."

Kim looked at the little holographic globe and whispered, "Tickle me." There was no immediate reaction, but before long Kim felt something warm in the back of her mind. Soon it flowed to the rest of her body. She imagined she felt how Ron felt when he recorded this; dusty and uncomfortable, thirsty, but strong. She closed her eyes to concentrate the feeling. Her mind supplied whispery images, remembrances of Kim from Ron's memory - a flash of red hair, a wide smile, big green eyes, a strong beautiful figure. With each fragment came a flush of warmth, a smell of cinnamon, a feeling of being held, being completed, being loved. Her face relaxed, her mouth curved into a gentle smile, the first in a long time. She sat like that for a long time, until Monique cleared her throat and brought Kim back to herself. With reluctance, Kim dismissed the yellow sphere and let Ron's feelings flow from her awareness.

But some of Ron's feelings stayed. Enough to keep the smile on her face, enough to make her remember her own images of Ron from millenia ago. Enough to make her recall what it was like being with Ron instead of mourning his absence, as she had for tens of thousands of years.

The stars were flushed out by the predawn light, a bright cyan spreading up from the east. It was going to be a beautiful day. Taking a deep breath, Kim awkwardly stood and helped her friend up, and both started down the long path to the empty valley far below.

Kim had a recording to make.


	2. Chapter 2

Rocks skittered under Kim and Monique's feet as they descended Mt. Middleton toward rolling foothills. Spread out below, the verdant countryside had long been reclaimed by nature, with the help of Kim and a few others. Only a few dozen people continued to live in or around the area that was once Middleton; the town itself was long gone, no more than a memory, not even a scar in the land. Houses carefully built of wood and stone dotted the clearings and hilltops, with no evidence of human civilization other than wood smoke drifting from a handful of chimneys in the valley below.

No roads, no noise, no pollution. There was no need.

A bright sun cut the spring chill, and Kim smiled and hummed to herself as she descended the rocky slope toward the foothills. Monique smiled as well, pleased for her lifelong friend. Both women chose a companionable silence, both between themselves and from the outside world; they allowed no messages or status requests through their wetware links as they strode down the mountainside.

Stored deep within Kim's body, Ron's message lay waiting for her to play it again at her convenience. The residual effect of Ron's feelings was more than enough for Kim, however. She would wait. None of the other messages was flagged as important, and nobody was trying to reach her, which wasn't unusual. If a message happened to make itself known to her, she could simply watch it in her own head, the video piped directly into her optic nerve via the miles of thin organic cable strung throughout her body, the audio likewise directed internally. Palm projectors could play messages externally, as hers had played Ron's last night.

Humankind had chosen to erase the external vestiges of their civilization, but they did not forsake their bodies, their permanent homes. Each person was their own computer and communication center, available to anyone else, anywhere in the world, in the solar system - barring speed of light comm lag.

Monique cleared her throat after a few hours of walking. "So what now, kemo sabe?" she asked Kim.

The redhead pondered before answering. "I guess I need to find a construction center to record my feelings, like Ron said," she replied. "I seriously doubt there's anything around here I can use." She looked at the forest below her.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Monique laughed. "Come back to Seattle with me. There's a constructorium there, they can so help you out on this. Heck, maybe I'll make one too. I know a few guys that would LOVE to know how I feel."

Kim laughed too, an easy and unforced sound after the long silence of their descent. "I'll just bet. Sure, Seattle's fine. It's what, about three weeks?"

"If we hoof it, yeah. This girl is gonna have some sore footsies, let me tell you," she mock complained. Kim knew very well Monique was far tougher than that. A three week hike was nothing, and foodplants were plentiful. The area where metropolitan Seattle once lay was actually under an expanded Puget Sound, but a populated area east of the bay called their city Seattle. It was far grander than the hamlet of Middleton - there were actually a few multi-story buildings, although most were more works of art than functional buildings. Except the constructorium, of course.

The fine weather lasted until early afternoon, time enough for the path of two young old women to dip below the treeline, before clouds rolled overhead and heavy rains began lashing the countryside. Undaunted, the silent friends continued their journey, pausing long enough only to wring out their sodden dresses once in a while, or feast on a handful of fruit from a dripping foodplant.

Evening was beginning to fall, and the dim light that had managed to filter through the storm clouds was beginning to fade toward darkness by the time they reached the creek at the foot of the mountain. Normally a placid little chuckling rivulet, the storm had swelled its banks to overflowing.

Monique pointed downstream. "There's a foot bridge about a mile down that way, if I remember it right," she told Kim above the lashing torrent of rain. Slipping down the muddy banks, the pair held on carefully to plants and trees to avoid falling and being swept in. Centuries of care taught them to be wary of mother nature.

The bridge was where Monique remembered, a sturdy little stone arch spanning the wide creek bed. They quickly crossed the slippery rocks and began climbing the opposite bank. By the time they crested a small rise, the river at their backs, the rain had decreased to a light pelting of drops, but the light was fading fast. In the distance, Kim spied a flickering yellow light. "Hey, isn't there a house down there? I could use a warm fire. What do you say?"

"I say, anything to get dry," Monique said with determination. "First dibs on the bathroom!"

Smiling through dripping red tresses, Kim stepped up the pace. As they neared the light, it became brighter and redder, far more intense than a mere window lamp would shine. Without a word, Kim and Monique began running, sliding through the messy underbrush to reach the house fire. They neared the inferno just as flames reached the wooden roof beams. Kim saw two people backing away from the house, a man and a woman. She couldn't tell who they were in the flickering light of the flames, but their jerky movements appeared frightened. As tongues of fire licked outside two front windows of the single story log house, the couple turned and almost ran over Kim and Monique as they approached at a jog.

"Get down!" the man yelled, grabbing their arms and hauling them bodily to the wet, muddy ground. His companion threw herself down too, just before a bass "whoompf" took off the roof of the building in one huge explosion. Debris from the house rained down around them, but fortunately nothing larger than a few cinders fell on the four people prostrate on the ground. They waited, heads covered, until they no longer heard things pattering to the ground around them.

Kim sat up, helping Monique into an upright position. "Hell-ooooh, what was that? You storing some old petrochemicals or something in your potato cellar?" she asked crossly. Having a nice, warm house blow up in front of her, especially when she wanted to use its bathroom, had a poor effect on her attitude.

The older woman sat up, rubbing the back of her neck where a hot cinder had fallen. She looked at the bonfire that used to be a log house, its top now open to the hissing rain. Smoke swirled around the four, getting in everyone's eyes. She looked at the man and muttered, "You just had to go for 80 proof, didn't you?" Turning to the two newcomers, she extended her hand and shook Monique's. "Sarah. Sorry to offer you such a poor greeting." She turned to Kim, and her hand stopped in mid-shake. "You're Kim Possible." It was a flat statement, devoid of hospitality or emotion. Sarah's hand dropped unceremoniously.

Kim said nothing. She'd sat through the same introduction thousands of times.

"Well, since you're here, you can help us salvage what we can. This fool," she kicked the man wobbling to his feet, "built himself a still, not like you can't get decent 200-year-old Scotch for a few days work or trade. But noooo," she intoned in what Kim thought sounded like the beginning of an age-old litany, "Marcus here thought he could do himself a better job, didn't he? And look what it got us. Another burned-out home. Another decade of scraping logs and digging septic tanks, blowed up. Another bad decision." Sarah turned to face the luckless man face-on, her eyes blazing in reflected firelight. "Well, no more, mister. I've put up with this for a hundred centuries, moved all over this continent, and built house after house only to watch you mess it all up. I ain't doing it again. I ain't."

She whirled to Kim. "I take it back. Help him as needs it. I don't. Goodbye." Raising herself to her full height of just over five feet, the slightly singed, indignant woman stalked into the drizzle, leaving the sputtering remains of her house and husband behind.

The shaky little man, Marcus, looked at the ground and shook his head back and forth. "She'll be back. She's always back, after a few dozen years. Always. What else is there?" He wandered off to look at his house.

Monique and Kim watched him stare at the nearly-extinct flames. The rain had finally succeeded in beating down the fire, and charred logs hissed loudly, pouring out smoke. As they watched, the final flame guttered and popped out of existence.

"I don't think we're gonna get to use the bathroom," Monique whispered to Kim, who nodded. Slowly backing away from the man who stood rooted in front of the remains of his house, the two women turned and put the odd scene behind them. "That was just too weird," Monique said as soon as they were out of earshot.

Kim shook her head. She understood the couple, perhaps too well. She'd seen it on her travels, far more than Monique had. People, desperate for companionship, settled for whatever, whoever would put up with them. Sometimes the matches were less than perfect, but with a reduced human population, the general consensus was that beggers couldn't be choosers. They were looking for someone to ride out their time with, until whatever end awaited them.

Night had fallen by the time the ladies reached another house, where they found reluctant hosts and dry shelter. And a bathroom.

* * *

Trekking to Seattle took less than three weeks, but not by much. The two friends didn't say much; there was little need. At times, they would play a favorite game of messaging each other obscure anagrams of music bands long gone, of favorite songs or people or places that no longer existed. They talked little of things deep or meaningful, and of Ron not at all.

Kim and her friend had put miles beneath their feet since dawn on the morning they reached Seattle. The outskirts of the city were well-tended rose patches, small foodplant gardens, and knee-high stone walls that reminded Kim of Irish countryside from long ago. The city, one of the most populous still in the world, was spread out and probably would not have even had a freeway offramp in Kim's youth. Graceful stone, wood, and composite houses were scattered seemingly haphazardly among infrequent service buildings, themselves artfully merged into the landscape. Gentle hills descended to Puget Sound, where pods of Orca could just be seen in the distance. No roads marred the verdant ground, only foot paths and the occasional cart track. Birds sang from apple orchards, fountains chuckled and splished, and a few people strode calmly among their business. Past the fruit trees and houses and outbuildings, a clustered handful of beautiful buildings jutted into the clear sky, the tallest rising no more than five or six stories. At the center of the cluster rose the distinctive shape of a constructorium.

In these latter days of humankind, the bustling metropolitan city of Seattle not quite a thousand people.

Monique's steps quickened as she neared her long-time home. Increasing her pace, Kim easily kept up with her smiling friend as she practically danced up a low slope to a compact home set underneath a trio of large oak trees. There was no lock; Monique simply unlatched the door and swept in, leaving the door open behind her. Kim entered slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the dim, stuffy interior. Undaunted by the dust and dark, Monique went from window to window, opening shutters and flinging up windowpanes to let in sunlight and warm, fresh spring air.

Settling herself into a large comfortable-looking chair, the dark girl spread her arms expansively. "Welcome back to Palace Monique!" she cried in a little girl voice. She kicked off her shoes and propped her petite feet up on a cushion. "Please, make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa."

Kim smiled and sat in her favorite chair. She envied Monique's pretty little house, the stability of it, its permanence. A feeling of belonging. Although a frequent visitor over the centuries, Kim herself had no such place to call home. No community would have her as a permanent resident, although they tolerated her presence for their own, sometimes selfish reasons. Kim's feet were her home, taking her from the icy wastes north in what was once Canada, to the lower isthmus where North America had separated from South America, from the European wastelands to the African veldt, and to all manner of islands, peninsula, archipeligo, continents. At times, she wistfully recalled the adrenalin-pumping speed of jetting from continent to continent between breakfast and lunch; but the feeling usually passed quickly. Kim knew the world and its remaining people far more intimately for having travelled it the hard way.

But it would certainly be nice if she had a comfy place to call her own, someday. In the meantime, she gratefully took Monique up on her standing offer to visit whenever she was so inclined.

Despite her feigned weariness, Monique jumped up a few minutes later to fetch drinks. "Lemon-lime?" she called to the living room where Kim sat, her eyes closed, mind clear.

"Sure."

Kim heard the gentle rattle of the chain as Monique raised the bucket from her cold well. She soon had a frosty ceramic mug of surprisingly tart liquid in her hand and a chilly tingle on her lip. Her friend, mug in hand, sat back into her own chair and raised a silent toast, which Kim mirrored. Monique broke the silence after a few sips. "I guess we've had enough girls night out," she said somewhat regretfully. "I better tune in and find out what I've missed the last couple of months. You going to find out about how to make a feelie recording?"

Setting down her drink, Kim nodded. "I guess. Although I'm not looking forward to asking. You know what people can be like." Concentrating for a moment, Kim removed the mental block that separated her from the silent cacophany waiting her attention. As she expected, there were no messages specifically to her, although there were a few general notices, regional and worldwide, that she would take a look at soon. Shunting aside her internal message center with a mental swipe, she concentrated on accessing the local Seattle constructorium, and discovering if they had loaded the colony's instructions on creating feelies. After a few quick inquiries to an infobot, she found they were accepting reservations to make feeling recordings. She submitted a personal message request to get in the schedule.

The reply came far more swiftly than she had anticipated. "Kim Possible, scheduled feeling recording, ten a.m. tomorrow," an obviously artificial voice whispered into her ear. Tomorrow? That seemed odd, and far too quick.

She was still pondering the exchange when she noticed Monique eyeing her strangely. "What?" she asked somewhat gruffly.

Monique didn't answer right away. "Haven't you listened to the general message list?" she asked, tapping a finger against the side of her head in the universal "read your wetware" gesture. Kim shook her head but accessed the list, watching the list scroll quickly up her vision. One large group of messages, titled "Outland Colony Research Results," caught her eye and she expanded the list. Browsing quickly, she searched for what could've triggered Monique's raised eyebrow. She was just about to ask for clarification when her inner eye lit on a title: "Temporal exchange technique."

Was that what she thought it could be?

Opening the message, she saw how large it was and opted to absorb the entire message directly into her thoughts. It was not a pleasant procedure, and Kim rarely had need to become so closely entwined with her wetware. But this time it seemed worth the headache.

It was what she'd thought. Time travel. The Outland colony had discovered a method of travelling into the past.

Before she could truly understand it all, Monique asked, "Well? Are you going to do it?"

Startled, Kim asked, "Do what?" Was this message not what her friend meant? She looked again at the rest of the public messages and found an officious-looking one she'd missed before. It had a deprecated tag, apparently just for her, which is why she'd initially skimmed over it. But the contents of the first few lines of the message startled the breath out of her.

"Whereas the Outland Colony has discovered and documented a method of transporting one person from the present into the past; whereas said procedure can only be performed once; whereas said procedure will allow a single person to spend no more than 50 relative hours in a previous timeframe; whereas the grievous error that allowed the human race to suffer childless immortality can now be rectified; be it known that the humans of earth have thoroughly deliberated and voted 'aye' to transport through time the one person who has opportunity to undo her error, and restore the human race back to a mortal, thriving, and generational status. So say we all."

Kim let the message fade behind her eyes. Sitting up blinking, her shocked face stared in Monique's direction, not seeing. An abrupt knock on the thick wooden door brought Kim back to awareness.

Two burly, unsmiling men in finely woven shirts and pants opened the door and entered without bothering to ask permission, a rudeness rarely tolerated. The first looked directly at Kim, who was sitting bolt upright.

"Kim Possible, please come with us."


	3. Chapter 3

**KP Eternal, Chapter 3**

"How dare you?" Kim icily asked the man standing a few feet from her in the spacious, sunlit room.

She stood ramrod straight on a marble floor, head low, eyes blazing, fists clenching and unclenching. Her breathing came in shallow pants, her jaw locked and shoulders clenched tight. She couldn't remember being this angry in a long time. A very long time. She'd gone past red-hot anger and out the other side to intense, icy fury. She waited impatiently for somebody else to speak. Monique was nowhere to be seen; she'd been escorted elsewhere.

The small, well-dressed man stood at parade rest, apparently letting Kim's anger flow around him. His clothes were well-tailored and color coordinated, and Kim noted unusual anachronistic details: a gold pocketwatch chain, a neatly folded kerchief in breast pocket, polished leather shoes. Few if any people continued to sport the acoutrements of the long-departed 21st century. In the lucid region of her mind, surrounded by a molten nimbus of red anger, Kim found him very handsome, extremely vain, and excessively proud. He also had no fear of Kim, who obviously had the physical strength - and inclination - to break him like a twig.

"Miss Possible, I must apologize for the manner and timing of your arrival," the small man said, voice like deep, creamy silk. The timbre of his voice was far lower than she'd expected for such a slight person. "As you can understand, now that we have made a decision, we wished to discuss the matter with you at the soonest convenience."

Kim continued staring at the well-dressed man. "YOUR soonest convenience, you mean," she replied. "But that's not why I'm upset. I've been manhandled often enough," she glared at two large gentlemen standing unobtrusively next to a wide column near the curved wall, "that it doesn't bother me much. It's what you wanted to DISCUSS that I have a problem with." She took a deep breath and willed her anger back down, below the surface, where it would sustain without burning her. "How dare you," she repeated, "decide FOR ME what I will or will not do. If you have something to ask, then ask. But you will NOT..." she paused and lowered her voice back to normal. "You will NOT dictate to me whether or not I'll risk the entire future of the human race by travelling through time.

"If you want me to do something like that, you'll ASK me, and describe why you think I should do it. I might even say yes. But I do NOT take orders. Not even from the entire human population of this planet." She folded her arms decisively across her chest and waited. Tens of thousands of years of buried anger and resentment at shoddy treatment bubbled to the top. Her sea-green eyes were bright and focused.

Mr. Well-Dressed cocked his head to the side and smiled slightly. "Ah, Kimberly, how can you think such ill of us?" His manner shifted even deeper into obsequiousness. Kim thought him a latter-day cousin to snake oil salesmen, but with better hair. "Of course, we will be happy to talk at length. After all, this is an enormous decision, not just for you, but for everyone left alive. You must recognize this is far more important than your own indignation.

"We have all discussed this for several weeks. Please realize it was not a decision lightly taken. Much was debated, focus groups focused, experts wrangled with one another, and it was an altogether busy time. You should actually be thankful of the peace we provided you during your recent stroll to Seattle."

Kim could barely keep from rising to the bait. "Oh, I should THANK you for excluding me from a decision affecting my own life? How kind of you," she said with acerbity. "I could just walk out right now, don't think I won't."

A light chuckle. "Undoubtedly. But you must realize this is merely a polite conversation between sophisticates. We certainly did not capture or incarcerate you, I think you'll admit. My associates have been an utter vision of deportment."

It was true. Although in another time, another place, Kim would have termed them "shaven gorillas," or thought unfondly of long fallen Jack Hench. They had not touched or harmed her, hadn't threatened beyond their mere presence, which in itself was considerable. But she had absolutely no doubt they would have had no problem trying to break her bones if she didn't accompany them to Seattle's sole governmental building. Kim smirked a little at the the key word "trying". It would've been an interesting contest.

"So are you going to keep me standing here until I cave in? Is that it?" Kim asked.

Dapper man looked momentarily abashed. "My apologies." He snapped fingers without looking around. "Please fetch Miss Possible a comfortable chair," he ordered one of his knuckle scrapers. "There's no reason to be uncivilized."

He approached Kim within striking distance, and extended his well manicured hand. "I don't believe we've formally met. I am..."

Kim interrupted, "Corbin Smythe, Seattle Regent, and all around glad-hander." He raised a single eyebrow in mock surprise. "There can NOT be two guys of your description in this corner of the world," she told him as a chair was placed beside her. Another was placed behind Smythe, who sat primly.

Sitting reluctantly, Kim watched the hired muscle retreat back to lean against a support pillar. The wide room was mostly empty, at least a hundred feet in diameter with windows spaced all around, and the roof domed with alternating glass and chiseled stone panels. It was perfectly circular, with a raised dias about fifteen feet in diameter, elevated two steps from the main floor level. The marble was polished and somewhat slippery. It was a room designed solely to impress and intimidate.

"Although we've never had the opportunity to chat, I hope we can get past this unpleasantness," Smythe said in a less oiled tone. "You're right, we muffed it up a bit by excluding you." He looked directly into her suspicious eyes. "I'm sorry. It was my call, and I thought it would be easiest all around this way. It did produce some results, however." He held out his hand, palm out, thumb extended as far as possible. He was inviting a private data transfer.

Kim looked at the palm suspiciously. "And why should I accept anything from you? Just upload it to a repository somewhere."

Smythe shook his head, smiling that enigmatic half smile again. "You have access to the public debates and resolutions. This," he wobbled his extended hand up and down, "is more sensitive in nature. For your eyes only." Kim smiled at the anachronism despite herself. She held out her hand until it was facing Smythe's palm, dropping her mental block on accepting external data, but ready to snap it back into place if she thought he was trying to pull something. Her fingers tingled as Smythe's short burst crawled down Kim's fingers and into her neural net. What she saw was amazing.

Details on the proposal: Kim dove into the burst, saw flashes of how it would work, what planning had gone into the project, how far along the local techs were in fashioning the time device itself in the Seattle constructorium. She saw minutae of her mission outfit being recreated, her cheerleader uniform (sudden tears threatened to spill from Kim's closed eyes), the debrief on how and where to foil Dementor's plot. The math and symbols and technical aspects were well beyond Kim's knowledge, but she grasped the practical points quickly. Assuming the Outland colonist's math was correct, it had a chance of succeeding.

Kim could change everything.

She lowered her hand and kept her eyes squeezed shut. They really had done their homework, far beyond what was casually available on the wetwork. Somebody - or several somebodies - had laboriously dug through scraps of her old life, what little remained in Middleton and elsewhere, dug up the remains of Dementor's Mediterranean lair and scoured everything they could lay hands on. Maybe the couple who sheltered Kim and Monique on that night after they descended from Mt. Middleton had helped; perhaps a dozen or more people had boated to Dementor's isle. They spent much of the three weeks in unseemly haste, preparing, debating, planning, building.

Despite herself, Kim was becoming intrigued with the notion. But there were so many questions...!

Kim opened her tear-rimmed eyes and looked at Smythe. "How can I... be responsible for changing these centuries? The lives of everybody? Why should I be the one? What if it's the wrong thing? You can't just expect things to turn out rosy, even if the plan works out exactly right!" Half-formed objections spilled from her lips before she had a chance to marshall them into coherent arguments.

The dapper man smiled a Mona Lisa smile. "Of course, you're right. How can we be certain stopping Dementor will result in a better life for humanity? We can't, obviously. Tell me you haven't lain awake at night, staring at the stars, playing 'what if' just a little. Some of us have been playing 'what if' for a very long time, and we have a fair idea of how it could've played out differently, had we been spared Dementor's anagathic gift." He gestured to the empty room, and Kim intuited he was including Seattle, the world, the human race. "What right have we to decide to grab the stream of time and snap it into a different pattern? I can't answer that for you, but I will tell you that nearly everyone on the planet debated the issue, and the majority decided to take the risk.

"It is a very lonely planet these days, as I'm sure you've noticed." He sat back and laced his fingers together, cupping his knee and looking expectant.

"How big a majority are we talking, here?"

Smythe glanced down for just a moment, long enough to let Kim know he didn't care for the answer. "Admittedly, not by a tremendous margin. In fact, it was rather slim. But it has been double-checked." He paused for a moment, and shot her a calculating look. "The main objection seemed to stem from the thought that you may exert more energy on your, ahem, boyfriend, than on your mission."

The thought floating around the back of her head rushed forward. If she did this, she could be with Ron again. But only for a little more than two days. It was more than tempting, and for that reason she fought it instinctively. With an effort, she strove to keep her feelings off her face, without complete success.

Buying time to think, Kim starting talking about the first thing to come into her mind aside from Ron. "But the world, the old world, was in such bad shape. I keep hearing or reading that we were only a century or two from complete collapse - the environment, overpopulation, resource depletion, technology advances in warfare, weren't they all conspiring to keep us from surviving much longer anyway?"

Smythe nodded his well-groomed head. "There's some truth in that. But those doomsday predictions didn't take several factors into consideration, which I won't go into; let us just say it wasn't quite as desperate as it sounded." He rose suddenly and strode quickly to the edge of the dias, down to the main floor, and over to an open window in the curved wall. Looking back at Kim, he said, "Yes, this is indeed a beautiful world now, but don't you find it a sterile world, without a future? Don't you feel as if you're simply tending the machine until we give up and fade away? I know how hard you've worked to redeem yourself," he continued, ignoring Kim's glower, "but it's like preparing the table for a meal that will never be served. Wouldn't you want to serve the meal, whether it's on fine linen or in a cardboard dish?" He smiled at her from across the room, clearly pleased with his impromptu metaphor.

Kim wasn't sold, not by a longshot. But she found she was actually considering it, now that she had more information. But she wasn't about to let him off that easily. "There's a lot to think about, you can't expect an answer right now. And I'd like to see Monique." She crossed her arms and waited.

Turning back to Kim, Smythe walked across the darkly seamed marble floor, nodding. "Fair enough. Would you be interested in talking with our technical staff to answer any questions about the project that aren't covered in the data squirt I provided?"

"Maybe after I see Monique. And after I eat. And no goons at the door, either. I don't want to have to hurt them. Oh, and I need one more thing from you before I'll even consider it."

Sensing victory, the little man stood at the base of the dias and asked eagerly, "What would that be?"

Kim stood and walked slowly to stand on the dias above Smythe. She towered a good foot and a half above him. "You need to ask politely. 'Pretty please' is a good start. Foot-kissing is optional but scores extra credit." She raised her right foot and gave Smythe a nasty little smile.

* * *

Monique filled Kim's crystal goblet with more cider. The meal had been more than edible, it was fantastic - after months of foodplant gleanings, real food like bread, butter, honey, pastries, and even pie with ice cream was pure ambrosia. Like most latter-day humans, Kim remained a vegetarian, although the distinction was blurred by some of the meat-tasting foodplants. Kim hadn't eaten animal flesh in millenia, and didn't think she missed it, since she rarely ate it even before foodplants were common. Even the thought of butchering and eating a pig, for example, made her slightly queasy. The eating part, that is; she had no qualms in tanning hide for clothing, for instance.

"So have you decided?" Monique asked. It was the same question she'd asked at her house just before human gorillas eclipsed the sun in her doorway.

Kim swirled the golden liquid in her goblet, thinking. It was more tempting than she was willing to admit, even to her best friend. Ron's face continued to pop into her mind. "There's a lot of questions to answer. And I don't know if I have the right to take that step, to change everything. It's really confusing."

Monique didn't give up. She was tenacious, as always. "No lie there, girl. I've been thinkin' about it ever since the goon squad grabbed you and they stashed me in this kitchen." She patted her stomach and let loose a demure belch. "Hey, look at it this way, at least you'd have time for a little something-something with your Ron man." She grinned lasciviously and winked.

Kim surprised herself by blushing. Monique giggled at the redfaced redhead, until Kim laughed too.

"Think he'd recognize you? You've aged since he's seen you. Hope he likes his women mature."

"I don't think he's even supposed to notice," Kim replied. "I look the same - don't I?" She turned to find a reflective surface, and Monique broke out in giggles again.

"Girl, you don't look a day over 17. Thousand, that is. Get over yourself, you haven't aged a second. You look like the same ol' Kim, sound like the same ol' Kim, act like the same ol' Kim - well, mostly, when you're not grumping around."

Kim sat back and took a swig of cider. She hadn't really changed, and she wasn't thinking about physically. Her body had the same athletic form she'd had since becoming a cheerleader, but even her attitudes and speech pattern seemed set. She acted 50,000 going on 17. Monique was the same. Even though she hadn't really thought of it before, it seemed that more than just her body was locked when she inhaled Dementor's spray.

Thank God she hadn't had PMS when the spray was released. Or a cold. Or a broken limb.

A discreet knock on the wooden door interrupted her reverie. Monique opened it and a pair of technicians walked in. Kim could easily tell they were techs; the stooped shoulders, squinting eyes, skin pallor, and nervous twitches identified them more surely than a pocket protector or D&D map could have.

"Ms. Possible? We were told to brief you on the, uh, temporal shift project," the first one said nervously. He didn't come too close to Kim, nor did he offer to shake her hand.

Kim sighed at the familiar reticence. She waved them to the two remaining chairs, where they sat stiff-backed and looking uncomfortable. The first tech continued, "As you probably know, we've gathered much data about the time period and what will be available for you to use." He took his hand out of his pocket and held it palm up, where a small hologram sprang into existence. A diagram slowly rotated.

"You will be physically transferred to the past, where you will exchange places with your counterpart at the time. She will come here, and we'll keep her safe and unconscious until you return. That will take exactly 52 hours, 12 minutes, and 8 seconds. It's automatic and can't be stopped.

"You will be outfitted with the clothing you were wearing at the time," he went on, and an image of her purple and orange cheerleader outfit replaced the diagram and its squiggles. "You'll also have a backpack with your 'mission' clothing, which has also been recreated. And finally, you'll have your communication device..."

"My Kimmunicator!" Kim squealed, delighted at seeing the small hologram. She hadn't held one for literally ages.

The tech cleared his throat. "Indeed. The device will have several additional functions not available in the original; you will get a full tech briefing on its uses. And finally, we have your grappler device." The hairdryer-shaped hologram replaced the Kimmunicator over his palm.

"You will have 52 hours, 12 minutes, and 8 seconds to complete your mission. Professor Dementor will release his spray during that time. We cannot send you any further back than that cusp event, but we'll try to give you as much lead time as possible in order to travel to the professor's laboratory. After the time is up, you will automatically be brought back into the future, and your previous self returned to her time." He paused for a moment, and looked at Kim directly for the first time.

"Now, you realize that if you are successful, this world will be extremely different than the one you left, correct? You will absolutely come back to this time, but it will not be filled with immortal humans. In fact, you will most likely be the only immortal person left, if not the only human." The other tech nudged the first and gave him a meaningful glare, which the first tech ignored. "No matter what, you will continue to survive, assuming there's oxygen and food and water available. But since time will have changed, nothing else will be the same. Do you understand this?"

Kim looked at Monique. She hadn't thought it this far through. Success, yes... a chance to provide her younger self the opportunity to marry Ron, to have children, to age, to spoil her grandchildren, to watch the world progress and change and grow... but at the cost of everything she'd come to know, including Monique. Elder Kim would forever walk the earth, surrounded by who knew what, circa AD 52,000.

Monique gave Kim a stern look. "Do what you've gotta, girl. I'll support you."

Kim flung her arms around her friend and hugged her hard. "You're one of a kind, Mon."

"Ain't I just," her friend hugged her back.

The techs both cleared their throats, clearly eager to discharge their responsibility and leave. Kim let her friend go and sat back down. "OK, assuming I agree to go, and that I spoil Dementor's plan, I snap back to here, but here isn't here. Got it. What else?"

"There will be no way to go back and try again."

Kim smiled sardonically. "Kinda figured that one myself."

The tech stood, anticipating departure. "I was also told to inform you that the colonists will not have gone, so there's nothing you can or should do to alter that," he said quickly. He sidled toward the door. "Reg, please give Ms. Possible the remaining brief material," and he slipped out the door.

The second tech held up his hand, palm out, and Kim accepted the squirt. But after it was finished, the pale tech sat for a moment before reaching into a pocket and pulling out a small cloth sack. Upending it, he spilled a pair of ornate bracelets and two medical injectors onto the table. The bracelets were beautiful, but clearly technical in nature, with circuits and other gadgetry visible under a semitransparent coating. The injectors were crude, since humanity had no need of preventative medicine or antibiotics. There weren't even drug addicts anymore, their bodies couldn't process drugs and provide the high they sought, so syringes were a thing of the distant past. These devices were more sophisticated than a simple syringe, but not by much.

"What's this?" Kim asked, puzzled.

The tech indicated the injectors. "These are filled with a preventative formula to resist the anagathic spray," he told her. Wow, thought Kim. "The do not reverse the effects of the anagathic spray after being inhaled, but if taken before anagathic inhalation, it can protect a person from the immortality and sterility effects. The subjects will remain mortal and be able to bear children, even if they inhale the anagathic spray later." He paused again, looking at the closed door as if he were sharing a deep secret. "If you find things not going well, you can find a man and woman, inject them, and use the cuffs to put them into stasis," he whispered. "The stasis cuffs will last at least until the present time, fifty thousand years, so find a good place to stash them. Remember, this is only as a last resort. I'm not even supposed to be giving them to you." Glancing nervously around the small room, he abruptly stood and opened the door, stepped through, and closed it while Kim and Monique sat open-mouthed.

Monique recovered first. "Trippy."

"Totally."

* * *

Kim stood in front of Corbin Smythe's large walnut desk. The spacious office was located one floor below the circular room where Kim's first interview was conducted, and floor to ceiling windows provided a spectacular view of a very domesticated, rural and demure Seattle. Kim glanced at it and wondered if she were doing the right thing. "I'll do it."

Smythe looked delighted. Kim couldn't quite figure out what he was getting out of it. After all, she would be destroying his rule, his domain, in addition to all the lives lived for more than 50,000 years.

"Spectacular," his low voice intoned. "We'll have you ready in no time. The device is ready now, and you can go tomorrow morning, after being briefed."

Kim walked to the glass and stared at the small city. No roads, no cars, no pollution. No hustle, no bustle. A sense of purpose, yes, the inhabitants of the city walked with a proud stride, but it was deliberate, measured. Nothing important enough to hurry for. No impending mortality to provide a sense of desperation or urgency.

No children.

In the end, that was enough to push Kim to accepting the mission. Seeing Ron was certainly incentive, and she had big plans for that young man. She'd also secretly spent some time accessing the wetwork and storing as much data about starship design as her internal wetware could handle, and a tiny little plot was percolating in the back of her mind. If nothing else worked out. But it was the thought of children that tipped the balance.

After a few empty pleasantries, Smythe's assistant ushered Kim from his office. Stopping by the constructorium, she was briefed on Dementor's lair: the known layout, henchmen corps strength, traps, and gadgets like his energy collector, bondo-balls, transportulator, and of course his anagathic concentrate. The helpful people there also provided her with a backpack containing her clothing and gadgets. Kim had a vivid sense of deja vu on looking at the black and khaki outfit, the baggy pants, the smooth grappling gun, the shiny Kimmunicator. It had been thousands and thousands of years since she'd worn anything mass produced, but the intervening years seemed to fade into inconsequence when she took the soft material into her hands. She rubbed the rough khaki against her cheek, remembering the texture, even the smell. Kim didn't notice the odd looks she received, so intent was she on reminiscing.

Walking with Monique at dusk, she toted the bulging backpack and drank in the gorgeous sunset over Puget Sound. If things went according to plan, this was the last sunset she'd see in this version of reality. The last time she'd walk with Monique to her cozy little house on a hill under the oak trees.

"Monique, I..." she stopped, unsure how to continue, how to tell her friend how much she treasured her.

Standing in deepening dusk, Monique shushed Kim. "I know. Me too. Don't get sloppy on me here, 'k?"

Together, the two friends watched stars appear in the crystal clear night, until a chill drove them inside for the evening.

* * *

The chair was shaped like a gynecologist's chair, but without the legs spread quite so far apart. That was the first thing Kim thought on seeing the time travel device. It combined less pleasant aspects of some other torture devices she'd seen, too.

Kim hoisted her backpack and settled into the reclining device. A pointy antenna in an inverted saucer was brought down to point at her midriff, now exposed in a cheerleading costume. There's gotta be a more dignified way of doing this, she grumped.

Monique stood at her side, and held Kim's hand. "Do it right, we'll love you for it."

Kim forced a smile. "You won't even know I did anything," she reminded her friend.

"So what's new, then?" Monique asked. "Hey, one thing... when you see Ron, remember he's young, not like we are. Treat him careful. Remember he's your other half."

Kim, not quite understanding, said, "Well, duh, of course he is. I miss him like you can't believe."

"Just remember he's not something to protect. He's gonna want to help you, he's part of your team."

She wasn't sure what her friend was getting at, so she just nodded and gripped tightly until a technician sidled between them and announced it was time.

"Ready?" Monique asked her, backing away.

"I dunno, I've never travelled through time before," she said.

Monique laughed. "But if you had, you wouldn't remember it, would you? Catch 22!" She sobered, and said one parting word before backing out the door.

"Goodbye."

Kim squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then resolutely opened them and gazed at the thing pointing at her stomach. Gripping the arms of her chair, she listened to the archaic countdown, waiting and dreading it being completed.

"Five, four, three, two, one, ze..."


	4. Chapter 4

"... other works included something about a guy in a hot air balloon sissying around the world in three months, and... Possible, are you listening? Or is our little discussion about 19th century literary works not to your liking?" 

Light, bright fluourescent light. The smell of many people. Shuffling sounds and giggling and papers rustling. A deep, authoritative voice bordering on the snide. A hard chair back pushing into her backpack. Cold wooden chair under her bare legs. Slowly, Kim's mind processed it all.

A gruff-looking man was standing in front of her, towering, glowering. "Backpack on already, Possible? That anxious to leave? Just remember, the bell doesn't dismiss this class, Steve Barkin dismisses this class. Comments?" Behind him was a blackboard, chalky assignments scratched onto its dirty surface.

Kim remembered. The hulking Mr. Barkin, perpetual substitute teacher, always eager to pounce on a student's shortcomings. "Sorry, Mr. Barkin," she managed in a rusty voice.

It had worked! She was in the past, before Professor Dementor's spray was released - she hoped.

Quickly, she glanced down at her watch. Rather than a normal digital or analog watch, it displayed a countdown, going from 52:11:52 to 52:11:51 as she watched. It was going to be tough getting into a deadline mindset.

As Barkin turned around, apparently satisfied by her subservient attitude, Kim heard a loud whisper from behind. "What's the matter, Kim, can't wait to get to your loser boyfriend again? Isn't he in detention again?" The voice was familiar, and at one time had been important to her, but not in a good way. Glancing back, she saw a curvy brunette with too much makeup and stylishly messy hair leaning toward her, a look of malice in her eyes. Bon. Bon-bon. Bonnie. Yes, that's who she was. Is. Bonnie Rockwaller, professional pain in the neck.

"Quiet in the trenches, Rockwaller," Barkin tossed over his shoulder. Smug, Bonnie sat back, arms crossed, point made. Barkin continued his lecture, but Kim paid it no attention.

She surreptitiously looked around the classroom. Rows of desks, each one containing a bored student feigning interest in the loud substitute teacher, were lined up to her left and behind her. The door was to her right, she was the closest. A quick count of rows and columns told Kim there were nearly 30 students in the room.

She hadn't been around so many people at once in a very, very long time.

Slowly, memories of Middleton High came seeping back as she studied every detail of the room. Bright fluourescent lights beat down on her, rather than the gentle yellow sunshine to which she was far more accustomed; her eyes began hurting until she squinted to cut the glare. Every detail of the room received her scrutiny, from the feel of the wood and metal school desk, to the sight of a pencil sharpener hanging loosely from a wall, to the scuffed linoleum below her sneaker-clad feet. At first, she couldn't tell whether the clock showed that class had just begun or was almost over, but soon the memory recall techniques she'd learned over the centuries provided her with the datum that class was due to end in just a few minutes. Other memories began cascading over her, triggered by layered hierarchical memory recall methods. The hall layout, schedules, teachers, fellow students, images and memories flipped through her mind quickly. Kim captured the memory dump with what little capacity she had left in her wetware, the better to be able to sift through at will or at need.

Cafeteria food. Josh Mankey. Ron Stoppable. School picture day. Cheerleading. Ron. Monique. Bonnie Rockwaller. Brick Flagg. Miss Hatchet. Ron.

The bell startled her back into the present - or her past, it was confusing. But she was here, now, and had to figure out where to be next. Actually, that part was easy. As soon as Barkin granted permission to leave, she bounced up from her seat and dashed through the door into the hall. Despite her impatience, the thought of leaving early never occurred to her.

Thirty students sitting orderly was one thing, but a hallway of bustling humanity was more than Kim had prepared herself for. She flattened herself against a row of lockers and watched the frantic tide of teenage flesh flow by, until she steeled herself into diving in. Kim, who never thought of herself as claustrophobic, thought she finally knew what it must be like to feel hemmed in, unable to breathe; even when she had been shut in a box and thrown into a water-filled chasm, Kim had never before felt quite so confined.

While she walked, she triggered a search of her recalled memories, looking for a specific bit of data. It had been important to her back when she first was part of this life, and it was even more vital now. Buffeted by students, Kim staggered along until her search returned a result, and she veered into another hallway, striding quickly among the throng. The room she sought was near the end of the hall, and she finally burst through the door, eyes scanning the milling group clustered around cooking utensils along one wall.

One butter-yellow head of messy hair stood out to her, his back turned to Kim as he confidently showed other students how to use a multi-speed mixer. Her heart thumped loudly as she stepped up behind him. She almost dared not say anything, for fear of the moment bursting like the bubble of a dream on waking. After a couple of seconds she drew a deep breath, swallowed through a dessicated throat, and said his name.

"Ron."

Butter-yellow hair snapping up, Ron twirled and smiled warmly. "KP, what's up? Aren't you supposed to be in chem class?"

The reality of meeting his eyes after tens of thousands of years of loneliness nearly overwhelmed Kim. He was on another planet, unbearably far away - and standing right in front of her. Her heart pounded until she thought it would burst; what would she say? She'd lain awake night after night, dreaming of this encounter, this fantasy, and in her mind's eye he had always swept her off her feet, looked deep into her eyes, kissed her passionately.

Not stand in front of her with a goofy grin, as if he'd just seen her an hour before.

But of course, he had just seen her. This Ron hadn't lived the centuries of nearly unbearable solitude, hadn't been anchored to life and hope at the slimmest possibility of reunion. The Ron in front of her was mortal, and young, and goofy, and was exactly as she remembered and loved. Kim grabbed the front of his maroon shirt and pulled him close, kissed him squarely on the lips, hard.

Ron, eyes wide in embarrasment, put his hands tenderly on Kim's bare shoulders and pulled out of the kiss, away from Kim's hungry stare. "Whoa there, Kim, glad to see you too, but hey, isn't this a little public?" He glanced nervously at the rest of the class, most of whom were watching the pair openly and smiling, some giggling. Most were girls, and one or two looked a little jealous, a couple of others contemptuous. "Not that I object, but don't you think it's a little awkward to be tonsil wrestling during Home Ec class?"

Unable to break away from looking at Ron, Kim backed slowly away and pulled him out the door to the nearly deserted hall. Classes were apparently just about to begin, and Kim was bound to be late, but that was hardly on her list of worries. Dragging him into a shallow alcove near a water fountain, Kim once again brought her face close to Ron. The object of her affection was still reticent, and had a slight worried tone as he asked, "Are you all right, KP? I miss you too, but lunchtime's just after class. If you need some lip service, I was thinkin' we could take a quick break out at our special spot by the bleachers, if you want..." Kim shut off his blathering by kissing him soundly again, this time with less force but more intensity. Ron responded automatically, his arms coming up behind her back, pulling her closer.

This kiss exceeded all of Kim's fantasies about her reunion with Ron Stoppable.

It might have gone on forever save for the bell that signalled the beginning of class. Reluctantly, Ron pulled away, gently pushing himself away from Kim's strong embrace. "Ron, I..." Kim began, but didn't know what to say. None of the things she desperately wanted to tell him were appropriate. This Ron hadn't left her to go to another planet; hadn't lied to her about Yori; hadn't spent a pair of lifetimes as Kim's partner, her love, her other half, hadn't been marooned apart from her for a geologic age. The intimate bond they shared during two centuries after this time was still being formed for this Ron. Anything she said now could change that. So she said nothing.

"No worries, Kim, I'll meet you right after class. Are you sure you're OK?" he asked, obviously worried about her odd behavior. She nodded, not breaking eye contact. He smiled, kissed her forehead, and said, "OK then, Kimbaya, until next time we meet. Gotta go, I'm late!" He pulled away and sped back down the empty hall. "Later, KP!"

Kim watched her love scoot down the hall and enter the classroom, wincing as he bounced the rapidly-opened door off his foot. Ever the klutz, Ron waved a final farewell and quickly closed the door behind him.

* * *

Kim wandered the halls of Middleton High, ignorning chem class. She was amused that she felt slightly guilty about ditching the class, but after all, she was saving the world. Again. Ah, how wonderful it felt to be thinking that way again!

Her feet brought her to the library. Spying an unused Internet terminal, she sat down and clumsily began typing; keyboards were long gone in her time. It took only a few minutes to verify the date and time, and she was relieved to see she had a good window of time to get to Dementor and foil him. The fated encounter, if this reality followed the previous version, would be less than two hours before she was due to be yanked into this world's future, whatever that might be. It was tight, especially if things didn't go well. Her vague contingency plans had very little room for delay.

"Library pass, Miss Possible!" a harsh voice boomed behind her. Kim jumped, startled at the sudden intrusion. She looked back, and up, at the imposing bulk of the librarian, Miss Hatchet. The woman had her hand stuck out, waiting for Kim's pass. Kim noticed thick dark hairs sprouted from the back of the large woman's knuckles.

Nonplussed, Kim stuttered, "Uh, I didn't, er... I'm not really supposed to be here," she admitted, her truthful nature hard to submerge. "Just wanted to get in a little extra study time," she said truthfully.

"Wait right there while I write you up!" Miss Hatchet rasped, stalking toward her fortress-like desk. Not wanting to get her younger self in more trouble when she returned, Kim meekly sat still and accepted the hastily penned rebuke. "No pass, no library privileges during class hours. No exceptions!" she told Kim, ushering her toward the door.

That went well, Kim thought to herself sarcastically.

At least she had a little more data to work with. She pondered what to do next as she wandered the hallways. Her locker seemed a good place to hide and think. Try as she might, though, she couldn't remember her locker combination. Standing, twiddling the lock, she let her fingers twist the dial this way and that. She was amused that her fingers seemed to know what they were doing, and was startled when the locker door popped open. Muscle memory - after fifty millenia. Intriguing.

The computer inside was dusty, an older model. A pair of shirts hung beside the monitor, a bit of jewelry tucked into corners, a few odds and ends taped to the inner door. The sight brought back powerful recollections... she shared her first real kiss with Ron outside a locker like this (though she had been under the influence of a mood-altering device at the time, that didn't diminish how she felt about it). The faded "Wanted" poster of Shego taped to the door also conjured thoughts of fighting, verbal ripostes, a powerful rivalry. The more memories tripped through her wetware, the closer, more attuned to this time she felt.

She had more than a full day to kill before the call would come for her to rush to Dementor's lair in the Mediterranean.

Kim pondered calling Wade, just to say hi, but it seemed out of character for her busy, younger self. One thing the techs from her future had drummed into her was to retain character, don't do anything to mess up what was to be. She found that ironic, considering her entire reason for being here was to change what was to be. But she understood and agreed with them that her actions needed to be consistent with the younger Kim. No big, right?

The bell sounded again. Kim hadn't realized how much time she'd spent standing in front of her open locker. As students streamed out of classes, most headed toward the cafeteria, although some went to the park outside. Anticipating Ron's presence, she headed for the football bleachers.

Ron was waiting for her in their special spot. Restraining herself, Kim flowed into Ron's arms and hugged him. When he started to speak, she looked at him and shook her head, kissed him lightly. He took the hint and kissed back.

Although she wanted more, much more, Kim contented herself with Ron's presence and obvious affection. At this point in their relationship, so many long centuries ago buried in her memory, they'd been a romantic yet chaste couple for half a year, and had not yet experimented with more mature pleasures. Both felt a keen sense of responsibility and honor, and neither would even contemplate making their relationship more intimate before they were both ready. And then there was the matter of Kim's father, Ron, and a spaceship to a black hole... Kim always thought her Dad was kidding. She hoped.

After long minutes of blissful kisses, she broke away and looked at her young boyfriend. Oh, how young. It was difficult not seeing the Ron she knew, the one she'd let leave so long ago, in his eager face. This Ron's face held no recriminations, no broken promises, no regret, no deep pain or shadow. His eyes sparkled in anticipation of an eventful life with Kim, an eagerness to grow into their relationship. She couldn't disappoint him.

"Ron, I want to warn you, I may be acting a little weird for a while. It's nothing bad," she said, hoping she wasn't lying, "but if I do anything out of the ordinary, please don't take it personally, OK?"

Puzzled, he said, "Sure, whatever you say. You know I trust you."

Leaning up against him, Kim's eyes grew wide for a moment, and then she gave Ron a coy smile. "Is that a naked mole rat in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" It was an old joke she'd just remembered, but couldn't recall when they began teasing with that particular tone. It might be too early.

Ron's face turned beet red. "Yes." Too early. But she noted his honesty in answering.

Kim laughed and snuggled him closer, until Ron's stomach growled. "Man, smooching builds a powerful appetite! Let's go see what they've reserved for us at the senior table!" he said, pulling Kim along to the cafeteria.

The rest of the school day passed dreamily for Kim. Her classes were all with Ron, and she paid little attention to whatever the subject matter the teacher was discussing. He sat next to her in most of them, and she couldn't help stealing glances his way once in a while. Ron caught her sneaking peeks, and he squirmed a bit, uncomfortable at Kim's attention. She told herself to knock it off, and tried desperately not to ogle her boyfriend. Even the thought of what she was here to do didn't douse her joy at being with him again, even if only for a little while.

Cheerleader practice after school was humiliating. After trying a few basic routines, Kim handed the practice to Tara and sat on a bench, claiming fatigue. So much for muscle memory. The others, being adolescent girls, gossiped and laughed a little about their leader's dismal performance, especially Bonnie. Ron practiced his Mad Dog routine in a corner.

Kim leaned back, watching the squad perform their routine. So much happening, so many things going on, so quickly... whenever she stopped to think about her mission, and compare this life with one far longer and emptier, she had some trouble remembering what was real, what was now, what was yet to come. Everybody moved with a purpose, with definition in their stride, or at least that's how Kim perceived it.

This must be what being an oracle is like, she thought. Dizzy with memories that haven't happened yet.

After practice, the pair walked home hand in hand, stopping off at Ron's first, which was slightly closer to school. Although she didn't want to part from him, she had to face people she hadn't seen in far too long, and she needed her focus. They talked of seeing each other tomorrow, Saturday, and what they would do with their weekend. Kim knew those plans would not come true. Kissing him good night, she continued walking "home" through the late fall afternoon.

Her watch showed 45 hours, 22 minutes and a few seconds until she left this world behind.


	5. Chapter 5

"Kimmie, you haven't touched a bite of your meatloaf," her mother chided.

Kim sat motionless at the dinner table, surrounded by her family: Dad on the right, Mom on the left, twin brothers across from her. The tweebs were bent over something, scheming as always, and Dad was distracted with some project he kept scrolling up and down on his tablet, absently forking meatloaf into his mouth and missing half the time. Mom, the most perceptive, had paused with fork halfway to her mouth to comment on Kim's immobility.

It all seemed so normal, so matter of fact. She hoped she wasn't showing her feelings on her face, because inside, her emotions ran strong and conflicted.

She'd allowed herself to suppress just how important her family was to her, how much they meant. In her own time, they'd all fallen long before she was whisked back to this time and place. But now, faced with the mundane setting of a dinner table, her memories pounced at her, distracting her from even speaking without breaking out crying.

And the thought of actually eating meat made her borderline nauseous.

Although she disliked doing it, Kim tweaked a pair of little-used subroutines in her wetware, letting them calm her, slow the release of certain chemicals in her body and brain, ease her breathing, slow her whirling thoughts into a coherent pattern. She knew she visibly sagged at the table, but couldn't stop herself.

Her mother, noting the sudden change in her daughter - from tense and wide-eyed to nearly comatose - asked with some concern, "Honey, are you all right? Have you been on too many missions lately?" She paused, halfway reaching across to her daughter, and asked another question that was uncomfortable but obvious. "Have you done anything you need to tell me about, Kim?" Her father cocked an eyebrow and shifted his glance in Kim's direction.

Kim took a deep breath and shook her head. Looking up, she forced a weak smile and reached out to take her mothers hovering hand. "No Mom, I'm fine. I'm just... tired. It's been a long day." Which was all technically true, and Kim _was_ fatigued.

Her mother's sharp eyes searched Kim's face, but found no hint of a lie. Kim had always been very bad at lying to her mother, and ever since a certain Halloween, she'd made every effort to be scrupulously honest. Kim smiled a bit at that... even when they were all several thousand years older, Kim had found it nearly impossible to fib to her parents. Not telling them everything now was more difficult than she'd thought it would be. But she knew she couldn't say anything.

Gripping her mother's hand tightly, she leaned over and gave her a quick but strong hug. "I love you," she whispered. Before her mother could react, Kim leaned the other way and did the same to her father. "Love you too, Daddy," she told him, meaning it deeply.

She'd missed them both so much.

Sitting back, ignoring her parents' puzzled glances, Kim picked up a piece of broccoli, dipped it in ranch dressing and ate it slowly. Directly in front of her, the twin dweebs were ignoring the mini-drama before them in favor of their own plots; heads together, they whispered back and forth in a semi-secret code language, pointing to a complicated crayon-drawn diagram spread on the table between them. Kim watched them idly, remembering just how much trouble they were to keep safe and sound.

Too young to make wise decisions, too bright to ignore the possibilities they saw in an inviting universe, they continually spread equal amounts of genius and havoc in their wake. Kim knew that her parents, both very bright and very patient, would spend the better part of a hundred centuries riding herd on the two ever-young hellions. Some of the things they came up with would be brilliant and go into service helping their fellow man, including some small parts of the wetware even now buried deep within Kim's immortal body. Other inventions and schemes they cooked up would often be averted from disaster by mere inches. Kim herself had spent considerable time monitoring their activities.

But it hadn't been enough, she remembered. It only took one time, one error, one overlooked glitch, to cause the tweebs to fall. She'd been busy replanting trees in upper Russia when Kim got word of the explosion at the lunar research station. It was visible even in daylight... the entire crater of Tycho, its bright rayed ejecta covering a substantial portion of the southern visible lunar hemisphere, glowed red for days as massive energies propelled suddenly-liquified lunar regolith into space. Kim had taken advantage of some favors still owed her by an ungrateful public to commandeer one of the few remaining supersonic aircraft back to Middleton, where her parents were nearly hysterical. The twins had been doing research on compressing matter into dense neutronium; they'd been exiled to Tycho base for safety purposes, even after crossing their hearts and hoping to die promising they'd be really, _really_ careful. They offered to even let Kim stay with them to make sure, but she demurred, saying she didn't know enough about what they were doing to keep them out of trouble.

Apparently, they hadn't been careful enough.

Kim's parents had been devastated. Their main purpose to that point was to nurture and protect their brilliant offspring, which they'd done for far longer than nearly any other parents with young children. She consoled her parents as best she could, staying with them in a house suddenly too big and too empty, trying to help them as best she could. There was never any recrimination against Kim, never any blame, no accusation. But nevertheless, Kim carried a huge weight of guilt, even knowing she would almost certainly not been able to prevent the accident had she been there, and she would have perished as well. It was years before she could sleep without waking at least once from a nightmare of vacuum and magma, silent screams, brilliant slow-motion explosions on the dead moon's face.

Slowly, inexorably, her parents spent more and more time in solitude, becoming less focused on the real world and more accustomed to thinking of the past. No words would reach them, no begging or threatening or pleading changed their actions. Kim's mother was the first to go, refusing to eat. She passed away in Kim's lap, Kim's tears falling on her mother's still form. Her father did the same a few days later. Kim herself contemplated following her parents, but her stubborn nature refused to simply let go.

Raucous laughter from across the table dragged her thoughts back to dinner, as the tweebs clamped their mouth shut and shot Kim a guilty look. Apparently they'd been devising some mischief for their sister and, in their sneakily open way, were plotting its implementation. Kim felt dizzy for a moment, the memory of her long-fallen brothers contrasting sharply with their snickering reality sitting within food-flinging distance.

She was going to change the future. The tweebs would remain mortal, grow up, get married, do some unspeakably brilliant things, grow old, watch their grandchildren, and eventually pass away to be replaced by future generations.

Her stomach somewhat settled by the veggie snack, Kim pushed back her now-cold plate of meatloaf. "May I be excused?" she asked politely.

Mom and Dad glanced at each other, and at their daughter, who appeared to be in a more normal mood. "Of course, honey," her mother said. "But remember, you and I have a talk scheduled for tonight. Faking being sick isn't going to get you out of it, young lady." She waggled a finger at Kim meaningfully.

Kim's face was blank for a moment, then she hung an "oh yeah" face on and asked, "Right, what time was that again?" She had no idea what her mother was talking about.

"One hour from now. You. Me. The den. Boys, you'll be busy then, right?" The doctor looked pointedly at her husband and younger children, who all looked uncomfortable.

"You bet, hon," the rocket scientest said, giving a weak thumbs-up. "Jim and Tim and I will be doing some extra-curricular studies at the robot rumble."

"Hoo-sha!" the two boys said in unison.

Kim stood, folded her napkin neatly, and quickly walked around the table. She stopped suddenly, squatted between the chairs holding her two brothers, and gave them a quick, unexpected hug from behind. "You little tweebs," she said, but in a wistful tone, not at all accusing or mocking. "Way too bright for your own good, you know that?" She straightened up, looked back at their puzzled and slightly revolted stares. "Just be careful when you play with this stuff, hear me? I don't want to have to..." her voice broke for a moment, but she recovered quickly. "To hold Mom and Dad together if you do something stupid." She turned, about to leave, but twisted her head back for one last comment. "And remember - neutronium is **not** a toy, got it?" She wasn't sure why she said that, since it couldn't have a bearing on their lives after she foiled Dementor. But it made her feel a little better. A little. She scooted out of the dining room, entirely missing the puzzled and worried glances her family exchanged.

* * *

Her room. Every detail, every nuance, every item was exactly how she remembered. The blue walls, the telescope at the window, her phone and computer, everything. Exactly, perfectly placed. Kim leaned against the wall, door closed, and felt an indefinable loosening of tension in her gut. This room, more than any other, was what she had missed for ninety nine percent of her life.

Home.

She belonged here, felt at peace. Her future wanderings brought her to many luxurious homes and hotels, but they all belonged to someone else, with Kim a guest at best, more often an unwelcome intruder. This single four-walled space was a refuge, clearly and starkly defined in her mind as sanctuary.

She'd only spent a couple of decades in this room before moving out, with Ron, to tackle the problems of an immortal world. But those few years were so deeply ingrained into her that she dreamed of this room, or whatever this room represented, at least once a week for her entire fifty thousand years of life. There was nowhere else that came close to being secure and safe as this small bedroom - not even Monique's tidy little house on a hill in future Seattle, nestled under oak trees.

Kim slowly walked around the room, touching things, brushing a bit of dust off here and there, letting her fingers and mind revel in the feeling of her room, her nest, her sanctuary.

Sitting on her bed, Kim simply sat and drank in the feeling. It was a pity she never found out how to record her feelings, she would loved to have saved this moment for a later time when she needed it. The next best thing was taking a full-sensory recording, although she had scarce capacity left for more than a minute's worth. It was worth it, though; so Kim stood, closed her eyes, opened them, and began recording as she looked around the room, walked and stroked things that had always been precious to her. Panderoo with shiny spots where it had been oft-loved; the phone where she spent hours talking with Monique and Ron; the posters and reminders of successful past missions; her fuzzy bathrobe and comfortable slippers; the embroidered pillow Nana gave her for her 12th birthday; the romantic, handmade card Ron gave her on their first day as high school seniors, clumsily written but signed with care; other items that stirred memories and emotions. Nearly full to capacity, Kim looked out the window, slowly closed her eyes, and stopped the recording.

_That_ was worth the price of admission.

Kim spent the rest of the hour scouring her room, rediscovering hidden and misplaced items that each triggered a smile, or sometimes a hastily brushed away tear.

A soft knock sounded on her door. "Kimmie? Ready." Her mother's footsteps quietly faded as she walked downstairs, and Kim heard the garage door close as her father drove the tweebs to their date with a robot. Reluctantly, Kim put down a cheerleading award which she'd been examining, and followed her mother downstairs.

The lights were dim in the den, large plasma TV off, blinds drawn against chilly October air. Kim's mother sat primly on a couch, a small bag perched unobtrusively next to her. Still not quite remembering what their conversation was supposed to be about, Kim walked over and sat next to her mother. "OK, I'm ready. I guess."

Her mother looked at her closely in the dim light. "Kim, you seem distracted tonight. Is there anything you'd like to discuss before we talk about the other thing?"

"It's not really something I can talk about right now," Kim said slowly. She didn't want to lie, but she certainly couldn't tell the truth. "It's kind of... confidential right now. I promised I wouldn't say anything until... well, for a while." For fifty thousand years. She looked back at her mother, saw the concern in her face, and wanted to reassure her somehow. "But I promise it's nothing bad, or illegal, or anything like that. It's not drugs or alcohol, I haven't been hanging around with the wrong crowd, I'm doing good in school. I just have a couple of things I need to do in the next few days." She hoped that would satisfy and reassure her mother, who understood about confidentiality.

It seemed to satisfy, at least for now. Nodding, her mother sat back and thought before speaking again. "Since Ron's busy with his folks tonight, I thought now is a perfect time for us to discuss the practical aspects of your relationship with him." Kim's eyes got wide. Oh _no_...

She hadn't forgotten this talk, not at all. She'd just forgotten _when_ it had taken place. **Tonight**?

Her mother continued. "I know you and he have always been close, and you know your father and I trust your judgment. Otherwise we wouldn't allow you to go on missions with Ron, alone and unsupervised. And now that you and Ron are officially girlfriend and boyfriend, I need to make sure that you stay happy and healthy. I'm going to ask some questions and I want your promise that you will be absolutely honest with me. I'll answer any question you ask honestly, too, even if it's personal, since I want you to trust me. I'm your mother, and a doctor, and I don't want you to make any bad or uninformed decisions."

Kim searched her mother's honest, open face as she waited for her daughter's answer. Kim couldn't lie, she would answer exactly as well as she could... as her 17-year-old daughter. Not as a time-travelling fifty-thousand-year-old woman bent on changing the course of history. "I promise, Mom."

Smiling, her mother leaned forward again and took her daughter's clenched fists in her own small hands. "Good, honey. This is important." She sat up straighter and Kim could see the professional doctor poise switch on in her mother's eyes. "First question: are you still a virgin?"

Now there was an opening shot, close across the bow. If it were anybody else, they'd get a fist in the kisser. "Yes." She had been, at this point.

Her mother didn't shift position, but Kim could tell she was pleased with the answer. "Have you and Ron gone beyond kissing?"

This one was harder. Kim sent a quick search query to see what the timeframe had been in her relationship with Ron. Fortunately, Dementor's release of the anagathic spray was a memorable event so she was able to determine a reasonable cutoff time for the search. Results came back shortly. "We, uh, we've done some heavy petting." She thought more deeply. "And when we switched bodies, we each did some investigation when we changed clothes, but that was separately." That had been a singularly embarrasing conversation with Ron.

Her mother nodded. "I'd be worried if you hadn't," she said. "So far so good." The questions continued, probing Kim's physical and mental history. Each was embarrasing, but Kim answered as truthfully as she could, as her search results allowed her to answer. After a while her mother wound down.

"Just one more loaded question, honey," she told her daughter. "Do you love Ron?"

Kim didn't hesitate. No search was needed for this one. "Yes. Deeply."

Dropping the physician demeanor, Kim's mother leaned forward and hugged her daughter hard. "I'm so happy for you, Kimmie. Ron's very sweet." Kim hugged back, blinking back tears of her own.

"Are there any questions you want to ask me? I told you I'd answer honestly."

The first time they'd had this conversation, in Kim's long past, she'd been far too nerve-wracked to take advantage, but this really was a golden opportunity. She was much more ready to probe her mother's past now than she had been... before.

"Actually, Mom, I do have a few questions," she started. Her mother took a deep breath and nodded for her daughter to go on. "When was your first time? And how?"

The petite redhead sat back and blinked at her daughter's one-two punch. "Well, I was 16, he was 17. We were in the back of a VW minivan, and we'd been going together for three months. We talked about it, and one night I got some contraceptives and we did it. It was my first time, but not his. I was scared, and it wasn't very fun, not the first time, but it was much better the second. For me anyway." A small smile tugged at her lips. "I didn't stay the night. I went home and the first thing I did was wake up my mother and tell her everything."

"What did she say?"

"She congratulated me on using birth control, and for being honest. Then she grounded me for not telling her beforehand."

"Wow," Kim replied, fascinated and appalled at the same time. "What happened to Dad? Did he get in trouble?"

Eyes not meeting her, Kim's mother winced and said, "I hadn't actually _met_ your father yet."

"Oh." Eyes huge. Why Mom, you little... !

Her mother saw the look. "Don't you even start on me, young lady," she rebuked. "It's actually healthy to have had more than one partner before settling down," she said in a less heated tone. "But I would like to remind you that this is a **private** conversation. Just between us. Understand?"

Kim understood, and stopped herself from laughing out loud. "You mean Dad doesn't know...?"

"You know your father. He's a bit tightly wound when the subject comes up. If he'd ever asked I would have told him. But he never asked. I tried to let him know, but he always weaseled out of the conversation before I could say anything."

One more, just one more question. "Were you Dad's first?"

Evidently regretting her decision to be honest, Kim's mother stared at her daughter for a full minute before answering. "Yes. But if I ever, **ever** catch you using that on him, I'll shave you bald and paint a smily face in surgical ink on the back of your skull. Got it?"

Grinning hugely, Kim nodded. "Loud and clear, Mom."

Her mother reached back and picked up the small bag. She poured several types of prophylactics onto the coffee table. "When the time comes, I want you to be properly prepared," she said. "This is _not_ license to do whatever you want, but when you do decide the time is right, you'll at least have some tools at your disposal." Kim noticed her mom had said "when" and not "if". Ever practical, her mother. "I'll be happy to explain how to use the ones you don't understand."

Looking at her mother, sitting with her hands folded and a determined look on her face, Kim felt immense empathy for her. Kim was older, far older, than the woman who'd given her life, and had experienced far more diverse things in that time than her mother ever would. But Kim would never, ever have a child of her own, never be able to have this sort of talk. Never be able to help someone who you loved, cared about, help them grow and learn.

Kim would trade all her years for a few decades of being able to experience growing up, giving birth, growing old, watching and helping and learning, preparing her descendants for their journey through life.

"Thanks, Mom. For everything."

* * *

Saturday morning was cold but clear. Leaves were making their journey from tree limbs to the ground when Kim stepped out into the brisk air on her way to Middleton Park. She wore a light jacket and her mission backpack, but left her hair to fly free in the breeze. Ron was due to meet her for a park cleanup day.

Walking to the park, she watched with fascination as cars zoomed around the streets, seemingly anxious to get wherever they were going. A few other pedestrians were out jogging, walking their dogs, or plowing through the weather head down, huddled into their coats for warmth. Everybody had something to do, some place to be, in their journey through the ticking clocks of their lives.

Surprisingly, Ron was already at the park by the time Kim arrived. She walked up quietly behind him and gave him a bear hug. Startled, Ron yelled, "Gah! Sneak attack!" He turned in Kim's arms. "KP! Don't do that, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" Kim simply smiled at him and kissed him soundly. "Now_ that's_ the way to warm up on a cold fall morning!" he enthused. He became more serious. "Did you have 'the talk' with your parents?"

Kim was impressed with her younger self for not keeping it a secret from her boyfriend. "Yes. It went fine. I got some good dirt on the 'rents, not that I can ever use it. And my Mom showed me how to use all the protective products we'd ever need. When the time comes." The irony of that wasn't lost on Kim, who needed them less than anyone.

Ron's face went red, and Kim suspected it was not from the chilly breeze. "Um, yeah, good to know," he said in one quick breath. "Hey, wanna help me with these bags? We've got a real litterbug problem here." Disengaging himself from Kim's embrace, Ron handed her a pointy stick and garbage cleanup bag. Kim found Ron's reticence to discuss more intimate relations very refreshing, and extremely Ronnish. She took the stick and started poking at refuse.

They spent a few chilly hours picking up trash, exchanging small talk, enjoying the time together. The activity strongly reminded Kim of the pair of centuries she spent with Ron after... well, after this weekend. They had a task, and each other, and that was enough to satisfy. Kim firmly shoved the thought of deadlines to the back of her mind and enjoyed the brief time she was getting to spend with Ron.

At the playground, Kim watched children with their mothers and fathers. It was a scene she hadn't witnessed for far too long. Squealing laughter rang in the clear air, and young children, from toddlers to middle schoolers, raced around the barkdust, pushed swings, crawled around the monkey bars.

Kim's world had no playgrounds.

Pausing in her cleanup efforts, Kim tapped her boyfriend gently on the shoulder and nodded at the playground. "Fun to watch, isn't it?" she asked him.

Ron stopped poking at fast food wrappers and glanced over at the loud mayhem that was the playground. "Sure, I guess, if you've got good earplugs," he replied, spearing another wrapper and depositing it in his rapidly filling bag. "Why the sudden interest in ankle-biters, KP?" His eyes suddenly got big, and he stared at his redheaded girlfriend, gulping loudly. "You're not thinking about... um... **kids** and **family** stuff already? Are you?" Kim had never seen him so beet red or at a loss for words. "I mean, that talk with your Mom and all..." he trailed off, clearly close to panic.

Laughing, Kim hugged him with one arm and reassured him, "No, nothing like that. Don't worry, my biological clock isn't close to going off." And how, she thought. "I was just thinking, though... it's pretty cool to watch families out and around, see the kids getting older, I think we just take stuff like that for granted sometimes."

Ron, slightly less red in the face but still wary, raised an eyebrow. "Yeaaaaahhhhh."

Although she'd made up her mind to come back and change the future, change a sterile, immortal human race for a thriving, mortal version, Kim still had doubts. Ron, while sometimes exhibiting situational ethics that disturbed Kim, was basically a very moral person, and she deeply valued his opinion. She couldn't come right out and ask him what he thought, but maybe she could paraphrase, get his thoughts on her situation without revealing that she wasn't entirely who he thought she was.

She turned to face him. "Doesn't it strike you as weird that we live so short a time? We're born, grow up, have kids of our own, and then fade away in just a few years. Wouldn't it be better to live longer, even if you couldn't have kids? Would you pick a short, eventful life or a longer but boring one?" Maybe it was a little too direct, but Ron usually missed subtlety by a mile.

The young man continued eyeing her with a raised eyebrow, and answered slowly. "I dunno, KP. Seems pretty natural to me. Sure, I'd love to live forever, who wouldn't? But then there'd be the overcrowding, the huge lines at the Bueno Nacho counter, there'd be people everywhere! Where's the fun in that?" He turned and faced Kim face to face. "You've been weirding out lately. Come on, Kim, what gives? Is something wrong? Like, with... you, and kids, and stuff?"

"No, that's not what I'm getting at," she said quickly, even though it hit very close to the mark. She looked back over at the busy playground. "I just, I don't know, have been thinking about the bigger picture for a while, and wanted to see what you thought." She couldn't meet his eyes for fear of the lie by omission being caught.

Ron obviously wasn't mollified, but let her slide. "Well, if there's anything you need to talk about... anything **we** need to talk about... I'm here for ya." He looked back at the kids for a minute. "If something's going on, like, oh, I don't know, you found out you had leukemia or something, I hope you would tell me." His worried face looked back at Kim, searching, very serious.

Forcing a smile, Kim looked back and said, "No, nothing like that. Don't be so melodramatic." She gave him a tight hug and brief kiss, then turned away and began picking up trash again. After a few moments, Ron followed suit, watching her carefully.

The rest of the pickup went uneventfully. After finishing, the pair turned in their sticks and sacks and walked to Bueno Nacho, hand in hand. Ron forced cheerfulness into his tone when he spoke with Kim. "Hey, how about a Naco? Litter patrol takes a lot out of a guy."

"Sounds good."

The streets were busy again, even more cars speeding along than earlier. She walked along the sidewalk, head resting on Ron's shoulder, thoughts still whirling about her mission. The more she thought about it, the more she felt stopping Dementor was the right thing to do. These people deserved a chance to live fully, and Kim could give them that chance.

She _would_ give them that chance.

Determined more than ever by the time they reached their accustomed fast food haunt, Kim's mood improved enough to jolly Ron out of his suspicions. They ate lunch side by side, as they had taken to doing since becoming a couple, and talked about what they would do on their date that evening.

Kim remembered the date all too well. She'd been wearing a beautiful but impractical skirt when the call came in to fly to Dementor's lair, and the evening had turned into a total bust even before they left Middleton. But at least she had until nearly midnight tonight before Wade was due to call. Kim wouldn't be as unprepared this time.

Ron excused himself to visit the men's room, and Kim dug out her Kimmunicator. Ignoring the extra gadgets embedded in the device, she placed a call for Wade, who answered promptly. "Hi Kim, what up?" He hadn't changed at all from her memories - same wide, smiling face, intelligent eyes, eager to help. Kim smiled back.

"Hey Wade, I was talking with somebody about a mission a while ago, and I couldn't remember something. Think you could look it up for me?" she asked casually. A vague contingency plan, one of several, was forming in her mind, but she needed to prepare.

"You bet. What do you need?" She told him, and he nodded. "No prob, here you go." A short series of numbers flashed on the screen, which she captured and saved both on the device and in her wetware.

"Thanks Wade. No end to how much you rock." The young genius preened at her compliment, and signed off.

Kim put the Kimmunicator away as Ron emerged from the mens room, toilet paper clinging to his shoe. Grinning a little, she pointed it out, and he absently scuffed it off.

"What's up? Is there a mission?" he asked, having seen her use the Kimmunicator.

"No, just chatting with Wade," she fibbed to him.

"Cool. So, where were we? Oh yeah. So I was thinking tonight we need to visit that new French restaurant, the one where they've got frogs legs and things I can't pronounce," he said. "Dressy, but you clean up nice."

"Sure, I'd love to." In a pants suit this time. "What time? And please tell me we're not going to be on the scooter."

Ron smiled. "Got it all worked out, KP. Dad's loaning me the car, so you won't freeze your pretty little legs off.

"It's a date then," he said when she nodded. "A date date."

"A date date. With Ron Stoppable."

"Muy excelente."

* * *

True to his word, Ron picked Kim up at 8 sharp in his Dad's 10-year-old sedan. She'd dressed in a sensible yet attractive pants suit with flaring legs and warm blouse. She also toted her mission backpack, which contained what she'd need to confront Dementor. Ron frowned at the bag, but didn't question it. He'd seen it often enough, and he had one like it stashed in the back, although his version lacked certain specialized, futuristic equipment.

Ron was wearing a pair of slacks that looked slightly too big for him, and a shirt that Kim had picked out for him a while ago. The younger Kim had picked out, she reminded herself. It looked good on him, although he wore it somewhat self-consciously. He gave Kim an appreciative whistle when he saw her, and Kim was pleased with her choice. Hopefully nothing other than her attire would be different from the first time she lived this evening, until they were called to pay a visit to Dementor.

Dinner started out wonderful. Ron tried his best, but mispronounced every French word on the menu. Kim was amused at the pain in the waiter's eyes as he tried desperately not to correct the struggling blond youth. Eventually they were served a fine meal, which was beyond anything Kim had had in a very long time. It was only near dessert that things started going downhill.

"Kim, is that who I think it is?" Ron stage whispered.

She didn't need to even look, she'd heard the distinctive voices moments before. "I'm afraid so. Good thing we ate first, or I'd be nauseous."

A shrill voice became louder as two people were led into the section of the restaurant by a harrassed-looking waiter. "That table's not by a window. I specifically said it had to be right next to a window. Brick, tell him he's got it all wrong!"

"Madamoiselle, I regret that we are très occupé tonight and cannot accomodate each request. I am afraid this is our only available table." The trio stopped at the empty table next to Ron and Kim. He pulled out two plush chairs and laid menus on the table, indicating the couple should sit, but they continued to stand, arms folded.

Bonnie looked around and saw Kim and Ron staring at her and Brick. "Oh great, not only do we _not_ get a window seat, we're in the loser section. If I wasn't starving I'd walk out right this second." Giving every impression that she was doing the establishment and other patrons a favor with her presence, she plopped her rear into a seat and kicked her college boyfriend in the shin with a high heeled foot. "Well, sit down already." She looked at the other table and arched her brow.

"Kim."

"Bonnie."

"Yo, Stoppable!"

"Heya, Brick. How's college?"

"Good, except for the studying part."

"Are you on a date with Stoppable or with me?" Bonnie asked the beefy quarterback, petulance dripping from each word.

"You, I thought. Stoppable's not my type."

"Act like it, then."

Trying to ignore the prima donna and her dense beau, Kim and Ron ordered some rich confection for dessert and shared it, feeding each other bites to the obvious annoyance of Bonnie. Sated, the pair leaned back and held hands, listening to the wonderful, icy silence that had descended as soon as Bonnie and Brick were served their dinner.

Kim looked at the room leading off to a small performance area. "Think you're up for some dancing?"

"As you know, Ron Stoppable is a bon-diggity dancer. I could most definitely do some damage to the floor. Lead on, my beautiful lady friend."

Bon-diggity or not, Kim still had fun dancing with Ron as he tossed any sense of rhythm aside and made the music his own. Ron danced with abandon and without pretension, just another of his more endearing qualities. For her part, Kim found her body remembered ancient gyrations, and she worked up a sweat trying to keep up with Ron's unique syncopations.

Grinning and breathing heavily, clasping each others' waists, Kim and Ron wobbled back to their table to settle the bill. It was past eleven, nearing the witching hour when Wade would call.

The Kimmunicator light was flashing, indicating a waiting message. Frowning, Kim picked it up... it was too early. Ron watched over Kim's shoulder as Wade's recorded face appeared on the small monitor. "Kim, your call earlier reminded me to do some scanning of all your major foes, and it looks like a couple of them are up to something. Doctor Drakken and Shego are off the radar, I can't get a reading on them. Last I saw they were heading west at a high rate of speed. Also, Professor Dementor seems to be putting the finishing touches on something big. I don't know what it is. You'll have to pick one to follow up on. Call me back as soon as you get this message."

Ron sat back. "Whoa, sounds like we need to find out what Drakken is up to. He's definitely nearer than Dementor."

"No!" Kim blurted. Ron looked puzzled. "I mean, we don't know what Drakken's up to, but it looks like Professor Dementor is up to something big. We'll do that one." She paused, then looked directly at Ron. "I mean, _I_ need to do that one. Alone. I can't say why." I don't want you to get hurt, or have to save you again, she didn't say. And she had another plan for Ron, one that had to keep him far away from Dementor for as long as possible.

"KP, we're a team! Whither thou goest and all that jazz," he said. He looked more perplexed at her attitude than hurt, but then perked up. "Hey! I'll take a look at D and S and see what naughtiness those two are up to."

"Ron... two words. She. Go. Ready to take her on solo?"

"Hey, been there, foiled that! Remember... no wait, you weren't there for the book... well, maybe you're right," and he deflated, slumped into his chair. He looked dejected, rejected, and Kim felt horrible for him. But determined.

Hooking her fingers under his chin, she lifted his head until they were nose to nose. "I'm so sorry, Ron. But I have to do this. It's for the best, trust me." Tilting her head, she kissed him, letting her tongue touch his just slightly. A surge of electrical impulses and chemicals, trigged from a command within Kim's wetware, flowed into Ron through the soft tissues connecting them, and he was instantly asleep. Kim wrapped her arms around his falling form before he fell face-first into the table. She laid him down gently, and again whispered, "I'm sorry," into his ear.

Quickly, before other restaurant patrons noticed...

Her small purse was just big enough for two bracelets and two medical injectors. The objects clattered onto the table by Ron's head. She only needed the injectors; one for now, one for Ron to use on her later. She had no need to use the bracelets, as she didn't intend for her and Ron to wait in deep sleep for fifty thousand years. She'd send an email to Ron from the Kimmunicator en route to Dementor's lair, explaining how to use the injector on Kim when she returned. Explain that, if she were unsuccessful with Dementor, Ron and Kim would be the only two humans that would remain mortal, and be able to bear children. Kim had to be well away from Dementor's spray if Past Kim were to be injected after Future Kim switched places in... 14 hours and a few minutes. Kim couldn't be within whiff of Dementor's sprady until Ron could make sure she was immune.

The Kimmunicator beeped as she began fumbling with the injectors. Setting them down, she turned and answered Wade. "Kim! I got a lead on what Dementor is up to. It's major, major. He's concocted some type of potion and he intends to infect everyone in the world! I haven't discovered exactly what it does, but we've **got** to prevent him from releasing it. I've got a Global Justice supersonic cruiser headed your way, and it should be in the parking lot in a few minutes. You guys only have a couple of minutes to get ready."

"Got it, Wade. Um, Ron's not feeling well, so he's sitting this one out, but I'm on my way. I..." Kim broke off, feeling somebody hovering behind her.

"Oh my God, what's going on? I heard something about infecting...? Kim, what have you gotten into this time? And will it affect me? I mean, me and Brick?" Bonnie bit off accusingly, looking at Ron's face lying on the table amid dishes. Her eye focused on the injectors. "Did Stoppable get it? Is that the cure?"

"Um, yeah, it's really infectious, be careful," Kim told her, making it up as she went. She did _not_ need Bonnie Rockwaller getting in the middle of this right now. Ignoring the other girl, she turned back to Wade and finished her conversation with him. "I'll get into mission gear, and if you could send somebody to help Ron home, I'd appreciate it." The tongue blast was temporary, but he was going to be out for a while once she injected him with the...

A "pssst" noise made her look up, where Bonnie lifted an empty injector from her arm. As Kim watched, motionless, unbelieving at the sheer selfish gall the other girl displayed, Bonnie picked up the second injector and quickly shot the full amount into Brick's unresisting bicep.

"You've got more for you and your loser BF, right Kim?" Bonnie asked, looking self-satisfied. Kim picked up the ampules and looked at them.

Empty.

Damn! Damn Bonnie and her self-righteous selfishness. It's a good thing this was just a backup, a just-in-case scenario, since she was **not** going to let Dementor release his spray. And she didn't have time to wipe the smile off Bonnie's face right now, anyway. The GJ jet was due any second, and she still had to change.

"Bonnie, that was _not_ a good idea!" Kim told her as she gathered the rest of her stuff. "It could have adverse side effects..." as she spoke, Bonnie started looking as if she might be sick. A few seconds later, Brick's face took on a green hue and he started making jerking noises as well. The tech in Seattle hadn't mentioned this, but maybe he didn't know.

When it rains, it pours, Kim thought...

She didn't have time for this. Grabbing both bracelets, she slapped one onto Bonnie, another onto Brick, hoping they would calm the two down. Once on, each armband glowed faintly for a few seconds and then faded into invisibility. Bonnie and Brick both stopped convulsing, and Kim guided them into their chairs, both open-eyed, neither moving. Others in the restaurant gave Kim a sidelong glance, but the action had been low-key and not obvious, especially with Brick and Bonnie sitting in their chairs. Most turned back to their dinners when Kim looked their way.

Somebody would revive Bonnie and Brick shortly, Kim figured.

Sweeping up her mission backpack, Kim rested a hand lightly on Ron's hair, then sidled past the approaching waiter. He waved the check, and Kim pointed back at her table. "Ron's got the credit card! Restroom?" The waiter pointed, and Kim nearly ran. She felt bad about the mean trick.

The GJ jet was waiting in the street, causing a traffic jam, by the time Kim raced out of the restaurant and vaulted into the sleek craft. She was so intent on leaving that she missed seeing a groggy Ron by the window, talking on his cell phone.

Kim also missed the shadow within a shadow at the back of the building, raven hair and bright green eyes the only hints that somebody was watching Kim's hasty departure from a dark recess. A tiny beep sounded, and the shadow slid back to meet the approaching soft whoosh of a hoverboard. In seconds, both hoverjet and pursuing hoverboard had vanished in the distance, leaving Ron asking Wade just what the hell was going on.


	6. Chapter 6

Clouds and city lights passed rapidly below Kim's window as the Global Justice jet made its way east, toward the Mediterranean and Professor Dementor's grecian lair. Tears of guilt and frustration occasionally misted the thick plastic window where Kim's cheek rested. Mostly, though, Kim just kept her eyes shut and tried to sleep during the long flight.

She was too early; disappointing and excluding Ron; that snark Bonnie swiping the injectors; the knowledge that she would never see Ron again, in this time or in the future; uncertainty about what she'd find once she bounced back to her time. These thoughts spun around her mind over and over, without resolution or relief. The confrontation with Dementor she did not dwell on, it was something she was confident she could handle, as she always had. Always except the once, she corrected herself.

Her Kimmunicator beeped intermittently, Wade undoubtedly trying to find out why Kim abandoned Ron at the restaurant. She didn't answer. She had all she needed, and had no idea what she would tell Wade about her actions.

Daylight streamed through the window, startling her awake. She must've slept. The ocean sparkled far below as the GJ jet streaked toward southern Europe, sun already high in the sky. Kim was moving faster than she had in many dozens of centuries, but found no joy, no thrill in the unaccustomed speed. Rather, it reminded her of the incessant hustle, bustle, jostling, confusion of the present world. The world that she was even more determined to save, now that her backup plan had been hijacked by her nemesis. **Bonnie** as a latter day Eve? Rue the day. Kim had no intention of letting that happen.

"Approaching refuel station Kilo Papa Echo in five minutes, Ms. Possible," the pilot informed her after noticing she was awake. "We'll be on the ground for about half an hour, you can stretch your legs and take a potty break."

"Thank you."

The plane descended through misty clouds and slowed dramatically. Kim scanned the horizon but saw no land, no island, no ship. As the plane slowed further, she noticed a disturbance in the water ahead, and watched as the conning tower of a submarine breached the surface. Water streamed from a narrow platform on the spine of the sub. "You're not seriously landing on that thing, are you?" she asked. The pilot simply grinned at her and focused on the controls.

VTOL engines shook the plane as it came to a stop a few dozen feet above the pitching platform. The pilot expertly set the craft down with barely a shudder and shut off the engines. Crew members hauling refueling lines streamed onto the platform and hooked up gaskets while Kim and the pilot disembarked.

A tall officer with shiny insignia approached Kim. "Welcome, Miss Possible. If you'll step this way, we have a priority transmission for you." Kim could imagine who it was; but she saw no way to avoid talking with Wade. She followed the officer below and into a spartan room filled with communication gear. One screen had a "please wait" graphic. A seated technician handed kim a headset, which she fitted against an ear.

Wade's face popped onto the screen. "Kim! Is there trouble? I haven't been able to get in touch with you!" The young face peering out of the black-and-white monitor was clearly worried.

Kim shook her head and made herself smile. "Sorry Wade, no problems. I just had to do this mission solo."

"Why? Ron's pretty upset you ditched him."

Kim hesitated. "I can't really go into it now," she told him. "But trust me, there's a reason."

"Ohhhhkay," Wade replied, unsatisfied. "The other reason I called was to warn you that you've got somebody on your tail. Radar shows a ghost mostly, but I've gotten enough data to indicate that Shego is following you. Be careful, I have no idea what's going on with her and Drakken."

Shego? That was new. The sub, Shego, being early... too many changes from the first time. She was certain she could handle the variance, but it might not be as straightforward as she'd thought.

"Do you want to talk with Ron?"

Yes. "No. Let him sleep."

"Anything you want me to tell him?"

Pause. "Tell him I love him," she whispered to the embarrassed young genius, and cut the connection. Handing the headset to the tech, she asked for the nearest head.

A few minutes alone helped her regain some composure.

Kim went back onto the deck and watched the rest of the refueling procedure. A granola bar took the edge off her hunger as she kept her balance on the rolling, pitching platform. The motion didn't bother her, but she didn't want to eat more, either.

Finally, the plane was refueled and she and the pilot reboarded. Takeoff was as routine as lifting vertically off a moving submarine could be, and soon the craft was streaking once more toward Dementor. Since they were mostly going east, the day zoomed by at double speed, and all too soon the sun was low behind them. Kim saw the long shadow of Dementor's island and connecting highway before she saw the actual structures, where tall white stone buildings rose from the craggy isle. Far above the island lair, Kim looked at the pilot, who touched a button. A translucent separator rose between them, and Kim nestled into her seat.

"Ready? Five, four, three, two, one, punch it!" the pilot called out, and hit the side eject button. The canopy slammed back and her chair launched her into a breathless arc above the jet, which made a sharp turn and zoomed above the falling Kim, bound for friendlier skies. Once the jet had cleared her space, Kim straightened out, kicked away from the small impact cushion, and began her long freefall dive toward the island.

As she neared the slanted rooftop, Kim scanned the parapets and balconies for any attentive henchmen, but saw no one. One large flat rooftop housed an imposing-looking tower, which Kim knew was the atomizer for Dementor's anagathic liquid. She hoped to foil the plot before it reached that point.

Aiming for a roof above the central compound, Kim pulled the ripcord at the last moment and rode down to a hard landing under her small parafoil. The noise sounded loud to her, but nobody appeared. Kim gathered her 'chute and bundled it into a corner of the roof. Tiptoeing to an open window, she listened intently, but heard nothing from within.

She looked around and grinned. Now _this_ was more like it. The adrenalin was back, pushing her forward, giving her a sense of purpose and movement. Kim hadn't realized just how much she'd missed that feeling. The important but boring work she'd done for millenia couldn't compare to the thrill of stalking a bad guy, taking him down, foiling his nefarious scheme.

Strangely, Kim found she missed the bad guys. She could do anything.

She focused on the silent stone buildings. The layout scheme was readily available through a silent command, blue glowing lines overlaying the real world. Ample computing capacity calculated where she was looking, and when her glance shifted, the lines moved with it, providing a realtime tactical layout - as far as was known fifty millenia hence. There were some gaps where glowing lines faded out, or turned pink where the layout was extrapolated from surviving data.

Based on the time of day - about 3 hours before sunset - and Kim's location, a small blinking red dot appeared in Kim's vision. One of the smaller outbuildings held the anagathic formula, about halfway down. A secondary yellow dot, indicating where the computers resided that held the research and critical information about how to create the formula, was in the same building, one level up from the potion itself. Smiling, Kim started working her way toward the building. Seagulls flew overhead, their swooping shadows not distracting her as she focused on the goal.

With two minutes in front of the concentrated liquid, and a neutralizing tool from her backpack, she would render the chemical inert. All she had to do was reach the room.

Footsteps. Kim froze, and shrank into the lengthening shadows of a rooftop. On a balcony two stories below, guards walked their beats, looking out over the ocean for any intruders. They didn't think to look up. After a few hushed words, the two beefy gray-clad henchmen strolled back indoors, away from the sea breeze.

Kim waited until they were well away before continuing. The deep gap between two buildings was easily crossed with the help of her grappling gun, and she was at the target building. Rapelling down several floors, she landed on a small balcony. This was about right; the yellow dot shone bright in front of her. A laser pen silently severed the window lock, and she gracefully climbed into the dark room. Shadow-wrapped cabinets, storage containers, boxes, and shelves filled the room. Thick clouds of dust greeted Kim's lowered foot. Apparently this was an unused storeroom. Excellent.

Night-vision goggles helped accentuate the dim lighting. Kim padded to the door, unlocked the steel-reinforced barrier, and slipped into a dimly-lit hallway. As she remembered from previous missions long ago, Dementor preferred his lairs dark and foreboding. Advanced sensors in the goggles found no trace of hidden traps, tripwires, or laser detection devices.

The doorway to the computer center was locked but unguarded. Another quick slice of her laser permitted her access to the small office, where food trays were piled high, CDs were stacked haphazardly, and other paraphernalia of computer wonks confirmed this was a nerd hive. Kim imagined Wade's room looked much the same.

Several computer towers were clustered in the center of the room, with perhaps two dozen monitors emanating from the computing core. A taller mainframe took up one full wall. Squatting, Kim took off her backpack and removed what looked like a tape dispenser and tube filled with small buttons. Starting with the mainframe, Kim created large "X" patterns with the tape, and placed a button at the center of each X. It took a few minutes to make sure she got all the computers properly setup, but nobody disturbed her quiet work. Satisfied she had gotten them all, she backed up near the door and took out her Kimmunicator, keyed in a short sequence, and instinctively covered her eyes. There was no flash, no obvious sign of anything happening, but the "tape" had begun emitting very specific radiation that quickly fried the motherboards and hard drives of each computer. After a few seconds, the tape melted and then evaporated, and the buttons fell off, dissolved into coarse granules.

Thirty seconds with her laser pen tuned to "melt" took care of every CD backup Kim could find. There would be no simple duplication of Dementor's anagathic liquid.

The success of her first part of the mission improved Kim's spirits. For the first time in a long while, she began believing her slogan again, that she could truly do anything. Slipping out the door, she padded down the empty corridor and found an "exit" sign - apparently even supervillains weren't above building regulations. The heavily reinforced door opened easily to an empty stairwell, and Kim descended one flight. Emerging from the stairwell to another empty hallway, she concentrated on the blue glowing lines that outlined each wall, each door, each corridor. Over everything, the red dot indicating the location of Dementor's anagathic formula grew brighter as Kim drew nearer.

Kim tensely approached a doorway. Bright blue lines outlined the door, and the virtual red dot in Kim's vision pulsed. Kim gripped the knob and turned slowly.

It was unlocked. She glided in, noiselessly closed the heavy door behind her.

This room was large, clean, and mostly empty, in comparison to the storeroom she'd first entered, or the techie hive. A single narrow window let in red sunlight, which striped the floor and part of the table in the center of the room. Kim sent a quick command from behind her eyes and the lines and dot vanished.

A large spherical beaker filled with a translucent greenish liquid, about the size of a basketball, sat in the center of the table, tightly stoppered at the top of a tall, narrow neck. Making sure the room was empty of guards or traps, Kim tiptoed toward the beaker, circled the table so the door was in front of her, and looked at the glass-enclosed liquid. Kim gently touched the side of the beaker, and the ichor inside sloshed imperceptibly. She shivered. Mega-creepy.

It was almost too much to comprehend: this little bit of juice, this single container, held enough concentrated chemical to stop the aging process of every human on earth, render them immortal. And childless. What other single thing, in the history of humanity, had had such a dramatic impact on human society?

**Why** would Dementor decide to create such a thing, Kim wondered. How would that benefit him? When he'd released it, so long ago, the world went mad and he was lost in the shuffle. By the time anything nearing normalcy reappeared, Dementor had fallen. Without the man to answer, it was hard to understand why he had done it, and there were never any satisfactory answers.

At the moment, now in the past, Kim was less concerned with _why_ than how to stop it. Shrugging off her backpack, Kim rooted inside for a moment and came out with an oddly-shaped device that fit snugly in her hand. Gripping it tightly, she raised her hand and pointed it at the glass. It would take two minutes of steady firing for the neutralizer to break the compound into harmless elements. Kim pressed the trigger.

The small device grew warm, and Kim heard a low tingle the future tech assured her meant it was working. She smiled, focused on the beaker; this was almost _too_...

Kim felt the air shift behind her before her feet were swept out from underneath. The air whooshed out of her lungs as her back hit the stone floor hard, neutralizer flying out of her hand. A black and green blur swept past her, but Kim stuck a foot out and tangled Shego's legs as the other woman darted toward the table. Shego fell face first, tucked into a roll underneath the table, and popped to her feet on the other side. Kim forced herself to jump to her feet, although her back and head were nearly numb.

Insulated from Kim by the length of a table, Shego struck an easy pose and aimed a familiar, mocking smile at Kim. "Well, well, Princess, doing a bit of freelance on the side these days? Or have you decided to join us in the villain biz?"

Kim felt her body drop into a fighting stance. Shego's abrupt appearance brought back feelings and memories long buried, but her body knew how to deal with the threat. "So not, Shego. Aren't you a little out of your neighborhood? Won't Drakken get jealous of you seeing another supervillain?"

The beaker of liquid glistened between them. Shego continued to ignore Kim's stance and looked at her gloved fingernails as if evaluating whether they needed a touch-up. She glanced up through hooded eyes, amusement in her voice. "Like he keeps track. Don't change the subject, pumpkin... you're up to something, admit it."

"What do you mean?" Kim didn't like where this conversation was headed. She remembered Shego as being bright, but not this bright...

"Oh, come on, it's obvious. You've been acting funny for a couple of days, you KO your boyfriend - sorry, partner - and bogart the jet, and then to top it off, you tell your little technogeek to give the buffoon a kiss for you. How utterly sweet - and how obvious that you're doing something shady. And that you don't expect to see him again." Shego continued to smirk, slowly circling the table. Kim circled the other way to keep the beaker between them, remained silent.

"So here you are, halfway around the world, about to swipe something mysterious from dear Dementor. Gonna use it yourself? Or sell it? Or is somebody blackmailing you into swiping it? C'mon, you can tell Auntie Shego, there is after all honor among thieves." The woman's smile was wicked and huge.

Kim needed to buy time. Dementor's goons couldn't have missed the noise, even through that thick door. They'd have to be on their way.

"Why the interest, Shego? And how do you know about what my moods are, or what I do with my boyfriend?" Kim smiled slightly as Shego frowned at Kim's emphasis of "boyfriend".

"You think we don't keep an eye on you, little girl? It's boring and puerile, but it's a job."

Kim contemplated telling Shego what the liquid did. But to a 21st-century supervillain, the words "immortality drug" would be a blazing beacon of avarice. Kim dismissed the thought without hesitation. But maybe she could tell part of the truth...

"I'm not here to steal it. I'm here to destroy it," she told the raven-haired woman who continued to slowly circle the table. "It's a biological weapon that will - could - kill billions." That much was very true.

Shego lifted an eyebrow, clearly impressed. "Then it's probably worth a lot to Dementor. Wonder what he'd pay to get it back if it went missing?" She stepped forward to put a hand on the beaker.

Kim's hands were empty; her backpack lay several feet away, her Kimmunicator lodged in a baggy pants pocket. The table was bare except for the glass container and its deadly cargo. She couldn't throw anything, had nothing which she could use to distract her nemesis; except, perhaps, misdirection.

Kim's eyes went wide, and focused behind and slightly to the right of Shego. Leaning one way, she used her off-lead foot to tap very quietly; the sound bounced around the quiet stone room. Shego stopped reaching for the large vial, lit her plasma hands, and darted a quick look behind her, toward the still-sealed door.

The beaker was heavy, but Kim's hand closed around the narrow neck securely. It sloshed most unpleasantly as she carefully but quickly yanked it out of Shego's distracted reach. Wrapping her arms around the heavy glass, she backed up and warned Shego, "Don't try it, or I'll drop it and we're both finished!" The green-and-black clad woman pulled up short, snarled, and extinguished the glow around her hands.

"You would, wouldn't you."

Kim carefully circled around the table, giving Shego a wide berth, and inched toward the door. If she could get through, she might be able to lock Shego in.

In with the neutralizer. Damn!

Stricken with indecision, Kim paused with her back to the door. She certainly couldn't leave the beaker with Shego, but she couldn't leave without the neutralizer. And she only had a few hours until she would be yanked back to her own time. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck.

Without warning, the door behind her flew open, pushed by one of Dementor's thuggish henchmen. The door edge hit Kim in the shoulderblade, and despite her best efforts, the heavy glass container wobbled and started to slip from her grasp. Kim saw Shego's eyes go wide, just before the villainess dove onto her knees and wrapped her arms around the bottom of the basketball-sized container. Kim reflexively let go to keep from snapping the neck off the beaker.

The next few moments were a melee of fists, feet, and trying not to trip over Shego, who desperately avoided meaty fists swung at her while cradling the beaker. A tiny part of Kim's mind was amused and would've had a fun time needling Shego about her subsurvient position while Kim battled the thugs. Shego sidled on her knees away from the door, away from where the battle was centered.

Kim, seeing the vial relatively safe away from accidental breakage, concentrated on tossing as many henchmen back through the doorway as possible, but more kept coming. Tired muscles and burning contusions wore her down, and Kim recognized that although she retained every ounce of strength from her freak-fighting youth, her expertise at martial arts had atrophied. She was losing, steadily. It became a race between Kim's flagging endurance, and the number of goons Dementor was willing to throw at her.

Just as Kim was certain she couldn't shift one more beefy thug aside, the flow of inbound muscle trickled to a stop. A mound of unconscious henchmen half filled the doorway. Kim leaned back, panting, favoring her bruised shoulder blade and back where Shego had tumbled her. Remembering the brunette villainess, Kim looked for her, but the only people visible were knocked-out goons.

The narrow window where Shego had entered was open. Kim hobbled to the opening and looked down, then up, where Shego was just hauling herself and the green-filled beaker over the top of the roof, several stories up.

She was in no shape to follow. But she had no choice. Kim hoisted herself up to the window ledge and reached for the dangling rope, but before she stepped out into the void, felt a tingling between her shoulders and smelled ozone. Only after a couple of seconds did she realize she'd heard a zap, but by that time she was falling backwards, toward unconsciousness.

* * *

Massive headache. 

Kim blinked her eyes open, stared at the bare stone ceiling. A thin blanket covered her. She lay on a narrow cot in a dim room which Kim correctly guessed was a holding cell in Dementor's compound. When she rolled over, she felt every ache, every bruised muscle in her body, and the cot springs squeaked loudly. Kim was glad she hadn't eaten recently, or it would have made a surprise appearance on the floor; but the nausea passed and she heaved herself to her feet.

So much for the "I can do anything" mindset, she thought, staring at the bare walls of the small room.

Approaching the door, she peered through the barred window. It could've been plexiglass, but Dementor was a traditional villain and liked to be able to taunt his prisoners through iron bars. Kim saw a single guard, back to the door, helmeted head unmoving. She only rated one guard? How insulting.

A quick search of her pockets revealed nothing, they had taken all her gadgets. Dementor's Teutonic thoroughness was evident in her capture: a bare cell, no tools, not even her gloves. At least he left her her watch...

Which read 47 minutes, 11 seconds. She'd been unconscious for hours.

She had no way of knowing where the chemical was, or if it had been released. In her first version of these events, Dementor had released the spray by now. But with the changes introduced, with Shego swiping the vial, it was all different. The fact that she was still on Dementor's isle, and there was a guard, was a good sign, she figured.

Harsh static ripped from speakers in the hallway, and Dementor's tinny, heavily accented voice echoed throughout the stone walls. "Achtung, everyvun! Ve _vill_ find ze compliance formula, so zere is no use in continuing to hide! Herr Doktor Drakken vill **not** zteal it from me! And bezides, you do **not** have ze counteragent! If you zteal it I shall zimply make more! Ve haff your jet zurrounded, you shall **not ezcape!**"

_Compliance formula_? What else was going on here, Kim wondered.

Kim thought for a moment, and approached the door. If she was confused, it was a good bet the guard was, too. Drakken never bothered to explain his plans to mere henchmen.

"Shego's still on the loose, huh?" Kim asked casually through the bars, but the guard made no move, gave no answer. "You better hope she doesn't release that chemical. Nasty stuff," she said, as if to herself, shaking her head. "I certainly hope I'm nowhere near when it gets released. I couldn't bear to watch my flesh peel like that, or be in that much agony." She grabbed the bars of the door and affected a frightened tone. "Please, do me a favor? If they release it, please... please shoot me, or something. Put me down before it takes effect. I don't want to be turned inside out while I'm still alive. Could you do that for me? Please?"

The guard twitched silently, turned his thick neck so he was facing Kim. he wasn't wearing the usual dark glasses that most of Dementor's henchmen wore, and Kim could see a shiner on his left eye. The steady gaze of the guard met Kim's eye for a moment, and he reluctantly nodded.

Kim backed off and thought. She didn't have much time for finesse. Sitting on the squeaky cot, she stripped the thin sheet off and wrapped the blanket around her, and sat still for a few minutes. Then suddenly, without any warning, she began bouncing up and down, creating a hideous metallic noise. She added incoherent screaming, and flailed around inside the blanket. "It's starting! It's starting! Oh God no! My skin! Noooo!" She continued making a massive racket, peeking out through the blanket.

The door opened outward, and the guard poked his head in. The cot was in a corner, and Kim continued making as big a disturbance as she could. Between flails, she watched the guard slowly unholster his weapon. She was pleased he was having a hard time... he had a conscience. That should make it easier, and she'd try not to hurt him too much.

Kim went limp, then rigid on the cot, still mostly covered by the blanket. Her face was in deep shadow underneath the blanket. The guard leaned over, reached to pull the blanket aside, and Kim shot out her hand. She wrapped the rolled-up sheet around his arm, pulled, and rolled aside as he fell, off-balance, onto the springs. Kim wrapped the rest of the sheet around him and had him trussed in linen within seconds. His stun baton, which was turned to "lethal", fell to the floor, where Kim picked it up, reset it, and bopped him him into unconsciousness. Then she was out the door.

A small alcove next to the cell held her gear, including Kimmunicator and neutralizer, which she'd dropped upstairs. Strapping the backpack on, she dashed down the hall.

It was hard to tell if she was in the same building. Recalling the glowing blue lines through wetware, it took a few seconds to match the corridor layout. It was the same building, ground floor. Things were different now, though - all the lights were on, and sounds of guards searching rooms filtered into the hallway. Kim only had seconds to move, and dove toward the nearest "exit" sign. The stairway was empty, at least for the moment, so Kim started climbing.

The halls were busy, but Kim managed to keep from being spotted. Henchmen were searching in pairs, but not very effectively. Kim would've had them looking in different directions, a wider field of view, but they were watching side-by-side, allowing Kim to quietly sneak past doorways until she came to the room with an empty table. As she expected, the large beaker was gone. All the activity made her hope it wasn't being used.

The best bet was the roof. Creeping back to the stairwell, she dashed to the top and peeked out. Nobody in sight. Kim crept out into the early evening where stars were just coming out, and twilight was fading from the west. Keeping to the shadows, Kim stealthily made her way to the nearest parapet and looked down. Shego's jet was parked on a roof not far away, on the same building as Dementor's atomizing tower; guards ringed the jet, which rested in a circle of portable floodlights. Kim strained her eyes but found no sign of the raven-haired supervillainess.

Time to think like Shego. How would she make a getaway? She needed transportation, the most obvious was her jet, which was well guarded, and Shego was burdened with fragile loot. If it were Kim, she'd create some sort of distraction...

The blast took out a chunk of wall from one of the outbuildings opposite Kim's location. Chunks of rock careened into the sea, henchmen scrambled, sirens wailed. Most of the guards circling Shego's jet took off at a run, leaving only a couple of men in the spotlights. As Kim watched the chaos below, she spotted movement in a shadow near the atomizing tower. Slowly, Shego sidled nearer the tower, hands wrapped around a basketball-sized sphere. Kim could barely make it out; only the visual enhancement provided by her wetware let her discern the woman's presence. The remaining guards around her jet didn't see apparently see anything.

No time for subtlety. Kim drew her grappling gun, aimed, and fired at a far tower. Flinging herself off the building, she reeled in enough to keep her from smashing into the lower building, and she cut the line and went into a roll once her feet were above stone. The tower rose into the darkness, only a few meters away. She only had a few seconds before the guards came to investigate the movement.

Shego had placed the beaker into a slot in the tower obviously designed for it. The stopper was still in place, and Kim breathed a sigh of relief. Kim drew the neutralizer and pointed it at the beaker. "Stay back, Shego!" The villainess smirked and pointed a glowing finger at the still-sloshing liquid.

"Or you'll what, Kimmie?"

"This is important, Shego. You have to listen to me on this!"

Kim felt strong hands grap her biceps from behind. The guards had caught up, one holding her on each side. One of them pried the neutralizer out of Kim's grip. Shego waggled her finger, and the third henchman pulled up short and held up his hands. He hit some buttons on his wrist device and backed off, waiting. He'd let the boss deal with this.

Stalemate. Kim's hair ruffled in the light wind, but nothing else moved for a long moment. Shego, sensing the upper hand, smiled evilly. "You really need to be careful around this stuff, big boy," she told the nearest henchman. "One mistake and we're all toast. Now here's what you're gonna do. I'm going to take my goodies and leave. You're going to escort me to my jet and..." She broke off, eyes getting wide as she looked at something above and behind Kim.

"Quack!"

Kim flung herself down, as far as she could go while being gripped by two shaved monkeys in gray. They both let go at the same time and fell to the roof, and Kim glanced up just in time to see Ron's mission-booted feet planted right in Shego's kisser. His flared his 'chute and was down a few feet beyond where Shego suddenly decided to take a nap.

"KP! What's a guy to do to get another date with you?" he asked, running back to Kim and shucking off his parafoil. His arms went around her, and she felt her knees start to buckle. "Been having fun without me?" he asked, just before she kissed him soundly.

"Same ol' same ol'," she replied. "But it's better now. Much better." And it was. Kim felt deeply grateful as well as more than a little ashamed. She'd left Ron behind to avoid having to save his life this time, but he'd ended up saving her. She hugged him hard and then reluctantly let him go.

"Ron, I need to find a handheld thing that will neutralize this chemical. It's gray and on the roof somewhere." She glanced around the vicinity, trying to find the small device in the deepening gloom.

"Looking for **zis**?" a voice boomed. Professor Dementor strolled into Kim's view, holding aloft the neutralizer. He was followed by several of his more beefy henchmen and a gaggle of white-frocked researchers, who looked nervous. "You cannot foil me, Kim Possible. In fact, I should zank you for helping recover my _domination potion_!" His voice rose on the last two words.

"But... it's... it's an immortality potion!" Kim stammered, confused. Had she gotten it wrong after all? Ron stood by her side, plainly puzzled.

One of the techs behind Dementor blurted, "How did you know that?" Dementor twirled and glared at him.

"What do you mean? Is zis not a potion to dominate ze vorld?" he yelled at the hapless tech, who slowly backed away.

"Um, yes, absolutely, it's your domination potion, you'll rule the world!" the tech wavered.

Kim narrowed her eyes. "He's lying. He didn't develop a domination potion, he developed a chemical that will make everyone immortal." Apparently the guard in her room hadn't been the only one of Dementor's employees with a conscience.

"VHAT?"

Kim felt a strong push from behind, a pain in her arm, and Ron went sprawling. Two of the goons grabbed Kim and chucked her toward the edge of the roof a few feet away. Shego stood by the atomizing tower, disheveled and bloodied, glowing fist pointed at the flask. "I don't _care_ what the stupid thing is," she yelled, at the end of her patience. "Give me money and safe passage or I blow it all up **right now**!"

Scrabbling on the slick surface with one good hand, Kim continued skidding toward the edge of the roof as Shego ranted. She felt her feet go out over empty space, then her legs, and felt her waist pass the edge. Her frantic scrabbling slowed her down enough so that she finally stopped, but only when she had one hand gripping the stone edge. Kim knew it was a long way to the rocks and surf below.

Ron stood up behind Shego, wobbling a little, and looked at Kim, who'd struggled up onto one elbow, her face just above the edge. He started to take a step to Kim, who shook her head. "Stop Shego!" Kim yelled, feeling her grip loosen. Her chin banged painfully against the stone as she slipped back, unable to use her other arm to pull herself up.

Fingers sliding, Kim felt herself slipping further down the face of the stone building. Her fingertips were barely hanging on, and they finally slipped. She felt the familiar first rush of freefall, but only for a fraction of a second as Ron's strong grip wrapped around her wrist and arrested her fatal plunge. Heaving, he pulled the petite redhead back onto the roof.

"I told you to go for Shego!" Kim chided Ron.

"Might as well tell me to stop breathing," he replied. "Now let's go finish off..." At a sound, they both looked around at the standoff by Dementor's tower.

Dementor charged Shego, bullet head down, a roar of frustration bellowing from the short, thick man. Her hands came up to block him, and the two were suddenly dancing, fists embedded in each others' shirts, as they twirled around. The crazy, screaming pirouette ended when Shego managed to regain solid footing and slam Dementor's back into a console on the tower.

"Scheiße," Dementor muttered, stumbling away from the big red "Activate" switch. His fingers plucked ineffectually at trying to reverse it, but the machinery was already in motion.

It happened in seconds. As Kim and Ron watched - Kim horrified, Ron fascinated - sections of the tower extended up into the black night. Lower, a small pointed hose hovered above the beaker's stopper, then plunged through, down the glass neck and into the anagathic concentrate, sucking the viscous green fluid into the machine's intestines. A rumble began, growing into a whine, until a moist "puff" emanated from the extended length of the tower. Kim smelled nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing. But she knew it had begun.

She had failed to change the future.

* * *

Eight minutes, twenty three seconds. 

Kim glanced at her countdown watch as she ran, Ron in tow close behind. He'd inhaled enough of Dementor's spray, which was even now wafting across the Mediterranean, to stop the aging process in his body. Kim's body was already long immortal. They were both sterile.

Distracted henchmen made halfhearted grabs for the pair as they wound through Dementor's lair, but for the most part, chaos reigned. Nobody stopped them as they raced through brightly lit corridors.

"Tell me again why we're going _deeper_ into Dementor's lair?" Ron wheezed behind Kim. Only his girlfriend's firm hold on his hand propelled him forward.

"We need an exit strategy," she told the bewildered blond youth stumbling behind her. Blue lines glowed in her vision, and a pink pulsing dot showed her the path to what she was looking for. "Hey, you never told me how or why you were here."

"Oh, like Wade and I were gonna let you be all mysterious," Ron managed. "He called a jet for me the minute I saw you take off from the restaurant. But of course the one I got was slower. Why am I always second string?"

Kim glanced behind, smiling fondly at her tenacious young beau. She was desperately glad to see him, and not just because he saved her. Leaving him behind was a mistake she promised herself she would never again make. If she had the chance.

"Your timing was perfect," she told him. The pink dot was looming closer. Sounds of pursuit closed in from behind. Meaty thuds and a few cut-off screams sounded, and Ron shuddered.

Kim skidded to a stop in front of a door. "Here we go." Six minutes, five seconds. Kim kicked the door off its hinges.

She rooted around, searching for a particular oddly shaped device. Fortunately, the cluttered room was goon-free so she didn't have to waste time making anybody unconscious. Kim found what she was looking for, yelled "Yes!" and plugged it into the phone. Calling up the number she'd gotten earlier from Wade, Kim dialed the transportulator and grabbed Ron's hand. "C'mon Ron, hold tight!" Ring, ring... click.

"Level seventeen security, how can I..." the person on the other end started, as a manic Shego burst into the room, murder in her eye.

"Possible! You're _toast_, little girl!" the madwoman screamed, and leapt directly at Kim and Ron, who gripped his girlfriend's waist tightly, looking directly at Shego with resolve in his eyes. Kim mashed the "transport" button, and felt a tingle as she was transported across phone lines to an underground complex in Iowa. She had no idea if transporting two people at the same time would work, but she had no choice.

"...direct your _ouch!_" the voice finished, as Kim and Ron picked themselves off the hapless security guard. Kim grabbed the phone and slammed it down on the receiver, leaned back for a minute, and sighed. It had worked. Just enough time to try one last-ditch contingency plan before bouncing off to the unknown future.

Kim picked the phone back up and dialed zero. "I need to speak with..." quick search query, "Lieutenant Franklin, immediately. It's an emergency."

Four minutes, twenty seconds.

"Franklin."

"This is Kim Possible. I'm on the base and need immediate access to Project Phoebus. It's a matter of life and death, sir."

"Of course, granted. Where are you? I'll assign a security escort..." the phone banged against the wall as Kim grabbed Ron and sped down a corridor. No glowing blue lines guided her here; it wasn't part of her brief. But she recognized the walls from her previous visit, many centuries earlier.

The room was secure, but a guard, apparently just briefed, opened the door in time for Kim and Ron to barrel through. Ron, confused, began asking Kim, "What's the..."

"No time! Ron, when I get under the chair, pull that lever and hit the button." Her eyes pleaded with him. "Please don't ask questions, this is the last weird thing I'll ask. You'll get answers, I promise." Even if it takes fifty thousand years and 300 light years.

Although her time was rapidly counting down to zero, Kim grabbed Ron and kissed him, tears running down her cheeks. She looked him directly in the eyes, but couldn't say anything.

Kim dove into the seat under what looked like a high-tech hair dryer, pulled the headpiece down.

Thirty one seconds.

Ron pulled the barred lever and clicked the button. Kim felt weirdness happening in her head, but had no idea whether the device was actually enhancing her brainpower, as advertised. The only successful test she knew of was on a naked mole rat. Second after tingly second crawled by as the machine did its work. It was going to be close.

A commotion past the open door caught Kim's eyes. Unable to move her head, she glanced right in time to see Shego bound through the door, plasma hands glowing, madness in her eyes. Ignoring Ron, she stalked toward the immobile Kim, locked in the embrace of Project Phoebus. "Not getting away this time, Princess." Despite her manic pose, Shego saw the question in Kim's eyes. "Caller ID." She brought her claws up and aimed her deadly fingers right between Kim's eyes.

"Bye bye, Pumpkin."

Power flared, prepared to blast Kim's head into oblivion. Just before release, Shego's hand jerked up. Ron had rolled a chair into the back of Shego's knees, foiling her aim, shifting the deadly blast from Kim's head to the machine above her. Hot droplets of metal splashed down on Kim before blackness closed over her.

Zero.

* * *

Massive headache. Or maybe the first one never went away. Kim blearily opened her eyes, looked around, expecting to see... whatever it was she thought she expected, this wasn't it. She gasped, blinked, breathed hard. 

"Good, you're finally awake, Kimmie. We were worried about you." Two people hovered over her reclining form. Behind them, Kim glimpsed her room, complete with cheerleader awards, telescope at the picture window, computer on the desk. Panderoo was by her side.

"_Mom? Dad?"_


	7. Chapter 7

"Does anybody have an aspirin?"

Kim could think of nothing more coherent. She'd just been in an underground top-secret lab in Iowa, watching Shego blast a machine she'd been sitting under, and then she was... home. Confusion was written across Kim's face, her thoughts spinning wildly, her head, chin, arm and back aching.

Impossibly, her parents were hovering solicitously, the same parents who were long fallen. Her room with its blue walls, bright sunlight streaming in the picture window, and everything else familiar, homey. Unsure of where, or even _when_ she was, Kim blinked and tried to form a question that wouldn't concern her parents. "So, um, how long was I out?"

Kim's mother smiled, reached onto the table by her daughter's pillow, and produced two pills and a glass of lukewarm water, which Kim swallowed gratefully.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, her father gently held her hand. "About 12 hours. They brought you back by emergency jet, and we convinced them to let you recuperate at home, in familiar surroundings."

It felt as though Kim had been unconscious for 12 seconds, rather than 12 hours. Her body ached, her mind was churning, and her heart was both bursting on seeing her long-gone parents, as well as aching for the loss of Ron and the guilt of her failure to stop Dementor from releasing his anagathic spray.

Kim pinched her eyes shut for a moment, tried to focus. OK, she should be back in her time, not the past. She looked for her watch, but her wrist was bare. What if the techs were wrong? What if she didn't leave? It certainly looked as if she was in the early 21st century, and her parents looked the same...

Well, on closer inspection, maybe not exactly the same. Her father always wore polyester. This shirt was linen. She looked around the room with a more critical eye, and picked out discrepancies. The computer was a much more modern model than she'd ever used; the color of the walls was a bit more robin's egg blue than before; and some of the things strewn about her room were unfamiliar or well out of place. If it was a fake, it was an excellent fake... but it wasn't exactly the same.

Patting her father's hand, Kim pulled herself to a sitting position and slowly levered herself out of bed. Her mother put a small hand on Kim's arm. "Take it easy, honey. You've had some nasty knocks."

Judging by the light streaming in, it was late afternoon. Kim hobbled over to the window and looked out at the world. She gaped at the sight. Rather than displaying the suburbs of Middleton, as it always had in Kim's youth, her window looked directly over Lake Middleton, with Mt. Middleton in the distance. A few houses sprinkled the landscape, but not nearly enough for the Middleton she remembered. There were no roads.

"They said you might be a little discombobulated," her father told her, smiling to take the sting out of his words. "Travelling through time must be disorienting, at the very least."

Kim's eyes widened. He knew about her travels through time? How?

"Daddy, I have a weird question... but what year is it?"

He smiled again. "The same year you left not quite three days ago. AD 52,215."

Oh boy.

Her mother pulled up a chair for Kim, helped her relax into the cushions. The three Possibles sat, knees nearly touching, in the close reproduction of Kim's childhood bedroom, and tried to bring each other up to date.

"I know you're tired, honey," her mother began, "but let us know when you want to talk about it. You'll be debriefed by the technicians, of course, but I'm sure we can help you get re-oriented." She took a deep breath when Kim nodded for her to continue. "First, let's talk about what went wrong, why nothing was changed."

"Nothing? Not nothing," Kim protested, then stopped. How could she tell them she saw them die?

She continued, "I don't know what you mean by things not changing. OK, I didn't foil Dementor's plot, but apparently I made enough of a difference in the past to make _some_ changes. Things are definitely... different."

"Sounds like a temporal divergence. What's different, KC?" her father asked.

"Like... you guys." Her parents looked at each other, back at their daughter. "Wait, what was that - 'KC'?"

Her father looked puzzled, and a little sheepish. "When you told me you didn't like me calling you 'Kimmie Cub' I, ah, abbrev'd it, and you haven't had a problem with it since. That's been quite a few centuries, Kim." He looked at his daughter closely. "And what's different about us?"

Kim glanced down, muttered to her toes, and looked back up. "You're here. Alive, I mean."

Parental eyes met again. "I see," said her mother. "So in _your_ timeline, we weren't here? What about Jim and Tim?" Kim shook her head.

Her mother stood, quickly strode to the top of the loft door, and called down, "Come up here, please." Dual pounding of small feet announced the arrival of twin whirlwinds, Jim and Tim Possible climbing over each other to get into their sister's room.

Kim smiled, genuinely happy to see the little terrors. As soon as they were in reach she pounced, hugged them both until they squirmed loose with cries of "Yuck!" and "Gross!" She watched them scamper downstairs again. Apparently her impromptu hug and warning about neutronium during her visit to the past had sunk in.

Her mother chuckled. "I guess that cinches it. Our daughter wouldn't hug her brothers unless she hadn't seen them in eons." Her face became more serious. "Do you want to tell us what happened in your timeline?"

Kim shook her head, sat back down. "Not yet. I need to get up to speed first." She took a deep breath. "So let me get this straight: I went back in time, made some changes, but not the big one I intended to make, and then came back here, only here isn't here, it's different. Better, so far," she beamed at the two adults. "I guess I need to know what else is different. Who else is here that wasn't before." Kim thought of who else might not be in the same place when she left, like Monique or...

Ron! He could be here, on Earth! If her actions changed the future enough to keep her family alive, the affection she showered on Ron should've made him stay with her instead of rushing off to another planet. She hoped.

"Where's Ron?" she asked, wide-eyed, hope lighting up her face. "Is he here, in Middleton?"

Her parents' faces grew somber. "Sorry, KC, he's stuck on an extraterrestrial colony 300 light years away, Outland. The ship broke, they ran out of fuel, and we can't get them back. I'm very sorry, honey."

Kim's hopes, raised to ecstatic heights just moments before, crashed down again, squeezing tears from her tired eyes. Some utopia. If only she'd told him point-blank never to leave her, or warn him away from the ship... but who knows what changes that may have wrought. She cursed herself for a moment for allowing her hopes to rise, but then tried to accept the situation.

"So. What happened, honey?" her mother asked gently. Kim quiety recounted her journey, hitting the high points, not leaving out the restaurant and dirty trick she pulled on her boyfriend, or his heroic rescue of her not once, but twice. The only major detail she omitted was the visit to Project Phoebus. She wasn't certain if anything would come of that, and besides, she'd obviously go over this again in more detail. She would add it then.

After she'd finished her tale, and condolences were spread for the failure of her primary mission, Kim's mother stood. "Only one way to be sure. Can I see your back?" Puzzled, Kim stood up, turned around, and lifted her shirt so that her mother could examine her bare back.

"Want me to cough, too?"

Smiling, her mother said, "Maybe next time. OK, that cinches it. Thanks, Kimmie." She looked at her husband. "No scar." He nodded agreement.

"What scar?" Kim had a generous assortment of small, white scars from her long life, but nothing major.

"The deep gash Shego gave you, a long time ago. You're better off not knowing."

Kim wasn't quite sure what her mother was talking about, but reserved comment.

Standing back up, her mother asked, "Are you hungry?" and Kim nodded. Her stomach growled emphasis.

"Do you mind?" her mother asked, pointing downstairs. "I don't want to presume in your house."

"**My** house?"

"Of course," her mother replied. "I love that you rebuilt your old room upstairs, it's so Kimmie of you. We thought you'd be more comfortable up here. Are you up for going downstairs?"

"Up for down, you bet," Kim said, intensely curious about what she'd see. They descended to the rest of the house, and the similarity to the home Kim grew up in vanished outside her room. This spacious home was mostly rock and wood, with a polished stone floor and throw rugs around a huge fireplace that dominated the living room. Pictures of Ron, the tweebs, her mom, her dad, grandparents, and others lined nooks and crannies, and large works of art were displayed prominently but blended nicely with the decor. Kim noticed Monique's signature on more than one painting. Finely crafted furniture carved the large rooms into islands of comfort. The overall effect was extremely satisfying to Kim's eyes; it was exactly the type of place where she would choose to spend her time, where she would've loved to call home after her long, lonely journeys in her previous life.

It dawned on Kim then that it _was_ hers. She'd built it. Or her "other" self, the one who lived in this timeline, had built it. She'd have to ask what happened to _that_ Kim. But one thing was starting to sink in.

She was home.

* * *

Stomach full, mind far more at ease, Kim leaned back in her chair in the dining room and looked around. Her family sat in their normal places at this unfamiliar table, which was apparently Kim's. The tweebs, barely suppressing their natural urge to bounce out of their chairs, eyed their sister eagerly. Her parents busied themselves with cleaning the table.

"Can you show us what you saw in the past?" Jim asked suddenly.

"We really wanna see how things changed since way back when," Tim added.

Kim considered. She was feeling especially charitable toward them at the moment. They'd actually _listened_ to her when she'd told them to be careful! And the fact that they were here, and her mom and dad were here...

Extending her hand palm up, Kim invited her brothers to download a short burst of her experience. She carefully edited out any personal feelings, and gave them a tightly edited version of events. Their eyes bugged out in unison during the fight with Shego and Dementor, and they both breathed "coooooool..." when the tower released the anagathic spray. After the short transmission, they lowered their palms.

"Your wetware is really out of date," said one brother.

"Yeah, it's ancient."

"We could upgrade it..."

"... in about five minutes..."

"... and you'd never know we were in there!"

Kim smiled. "Nice try, that's so not going to happen." But they were correct, Kim could tell their versions of internal hardware and software were more advanced than hers. She'd have to get that looked at.

While she was thinking about it, Kim decided to reconnect to the global network. She usually stayed off except to receive personal messages, but she'd shut all reception off when she visited the past. She was used to not being popular, and little of the chatter from the one million remaining humans was of interest to her. It was with some trepidation that she send a reconnect command, and waited to see if she had any personal messages.

Her internal voice, the avatar of her wetware, informed her she had incoming data. "Fourteen thousand, six hundred twenty three personal messages waiting."

Wow. Everybody must be _pissed_.

She wasn't up to dealing with specifics at the moment. And she still had very little storage capacity, she was still carrying around all the starship data she downloaded before leaving for the past (fat lot of good _that_ did her) as well as her recording of her room (which was now kind of a moot point). She decided not to delete anything quite yet.

"Synopsis of message content, please," she subvocalized. Her mother and father quietly bussed the table around her and washed dishes, recognizing the inward-looking stare on their daughter's face.

A multi-toned beep sounded for Kim's ears alone. "Results processed. Query: display representative messages?" The software had picked one or more messages that reflected the tone of the rest.

"Sure."

Keeping it internal, Kim closed her eyes and watched as her system piped a visual message straight into her optic nerve. She didn't want her parents seeing just how much everybody still despised her for her failures.

Monique's face appeared. Contrary to Kim's expectations, her friend was smiling broadly. "Girl, I just heard you were awake. They wouldn't let me in, they said you were banged up pretty good, but they said I could send a priority message. Well, I can't tell you how happy I am - how happy we all are - that you're back safe. We knew it was kind of a long shot for you to go, but at least we're all still here. As soon as they turn you loose, give a shout and I'll be there faster than you can say 'time travel'. I can't wait to see you. Big hugs!" Monique grinned, waved a disembodied hand, and faded from Kim's view.

Confused, Kim sent a more specific query. "Detail number of messages like Monique's - ones that, uh, wish me well. Also detail the number of negative messages related to my mission."

The answer was quicker this time. "Positive messages: fourteen thousand, one hundred and sixty one. Negative messages: twelve. Unclassified or not related to mission: four hundred and fifty."

They were all _positive_? Why weren't they screaming for her head, since she failed? She didn't understand.

Kim's mother saw her confused look, sat down, took her daughter's hand. "What's wrong, honey?"

"I don't know. Things are just... way different. It's hard to explain." She squeezed her mother's hand. "Maybe Dad should hear this too."

With both parents present, Kim gave a more detailed description of her own timeline, in words and data bursts. How her failure to stop Dementor turned the sympathy of immortal humanity against Kim. How she spent decades, centuries, millennia, walking the planet, helping where she could or where she was allowed, the lonely centuries after Ron left. Even the painful memories of the lunar explosion that claimed her brothers' lives, and her parents' fall soon after. How she never had a home, a place of her own - nobody wanted her near. Only Monique, but Kim couldn't stay with her friend in Seattle forever. How she'd been manipulated into the mission into the past. How she'd hurt Ron. How she'd failed.

Her parents sat stunned. Tears flowed freely down her mother's face, and Kim's father looked as if he wanted to grab somebody by the throat. "How could they dare blame you? How could they treat you that badly?"

"Oh Kimmie, I'm so sorry you had to live through that, and for so long!" her mother said, hugging her. Kim felt her mother's tears on her shoulder.

Kim pulled back, looked at her mother's face. "So... it's not like that here?" She wouldn't get her hopes up, she wouldn't, not this time.

Sniffling, her mother stood and pulled Kim to her feet. "I think you need to see something. Can you walk a little way?"

Kim nodded. They left Kim's house and walked through a gentle path down toward the lake. There were no roads, as in Monique's Seattle, but this was certainly far more populous than the Middleton Kim had known in her own timeline. Soon they approached a small log cabin, which stood in an overgrown tangle of brush and unkempt trees. A footpath from the crooked front door led down to the lake, but it didn't appear to receive much traffic. Cobwebs fluttered from the eaves, the roof was badly in need of repair, and the windows were all tightly shuttered.

It took Kim a few moments to realize there was somebody sitting in front of the house. The slight form was huddled on the ground, arms wrapped around bent knees, dirty and disheveled hair matted with sticks and filth. The woman was wearing poorly-made homespun, and there were scratches and welts along each arm. As the three Possibles drew closer, the woman's head lifted, empty eyes gazing at the trio. She said nothing, no greeting or warning, barely acknowledged their presence.

Kim approached slowly, horror on her face. How had this happened? Why? Even _she_ didn't deserve this kind of life...

"Shego. What happened to you?"

Kim's father stood next to her. "She's been like this for a long time, Kimmie. Not long after she gave you the scar. People have avoided and shunned her - since it's **her** fault we can't have children. She's not quite all right in the head, if you get my meaning." His tone had an edge to it that Kim wasn't used to hearing.

This wasn't right. She never wished this on Shego, never meant for her to be so humiliated, to be brought so low, regardless of Shego's actions on that fateful day atop Dementor's lair. She squatted in front of the filthy woman, who tensed.

Kim wrapped her arms around Shego's thin shoulders, hugged her close.

The other woman remained tense for a moment, then the iron seemed to go out of her body, and she sagged against Kim, sobbing inaudibly. Kim stroked the once shiny black hair, now tangled and matted and filled with who knew what. She rocked the other woman gently, whispering reasurrances. When Shego calmed down and stopped her silent crying, Kim looked at her. "I know what you've gone through. Trust me. It doesn't have to be that way." Looking at her parents, she asked their help. "Let's get her cleaned up."

Her father looked trepidatious. "Are you sure, KC? I mean, she's the one who caused all this. And you've never wanted to help her before."

"That was before I went through what she went through. Do you think that's fair, even for her?"

Her mother looked thoughtful for a moment. "She's right, dear. We haven't been very nice to her - none of us have been. I always thought that her living so close to Kimmie's house was a cry for help, but I never personally wanted to help her." She looked back at her daughter, bit her lip. "I guess I was wrong." She put her arm behind Shego's waist, helped her stand and navigate back to Kim's house. Kim's father followed behind.

A bath did wonders, but Kim and her mother, who stripped an unresisting Shego from her ancient garb, were appalled at the gashes and untreated wounds she had suffered over time. They could also count ribs far too easily. Clean clothes from Kim's closet and a hot meal worked further magic, and some of the blankness washed from Shego's large green eyes. She spoke for the first time. "Why?" Her voice was a croak, unused for a very long time.

In response, Kim held up her hand, palm out, offering a data burst. Shego shook her head weakly. "Don't have." She didn't even have wetware!

Kim explained again, getting more adept at telling the tale. Shego looked puzzled through much of it; she hadn't even known Kim was to go back in time, nobody had bothered to ask her opinion, or even inform her. Shego sat still, uncommenting, throughout Kim's story. All she said at the end was, "Oh."

The sun was well down by the time Kim was finished. Her parents asked if they could stay the night, and Kim appreciatively said of course. There were several guest rooms - Kim was apparently quite popular in this timeline. Shego was placed gently into a small guest room, where she lay looking up at the ceiling as Kim sat next to her. Finally when Shego closed her eyes, Kim tiptoed out to sleep in her loft room, wrapped in soft comforters and warm memories.

* * *

The techs shook their heads, _tsk_'d several times, and asked her question after question. Debriefing took hours, and Kim found herself sending query after query into the recesses of her memories to find the answers. Nothing was overlooked: her initial appearance in Barkin's classroom; the conversations she'd had with everybody during her time in the past; the date with Ron; Bonnie's appalling theft of the injectors and stasis cuffs; her trip to Dementor's lair; and especially her time spent on his Mediterranean isle. Each response was checked, cross-checked, and re-referenced against this timeline's history to find what diverged, and from what point. They assured her it would take quite a while.

They were doubly interested in her use of the Project Phoebus device. Several scans found no unusual activity in her brain, and Kim certainly didn't _feel_ smarter. After they were done, she sadly concluded that it simply didn't work. Perhaps her wetware interfered, maybe the time travel process itself negated whatever impact it could've had. Shego's blast could've damaged the device before it was done. But Kim was convinced she was no smarter than when she'd left. Several of the technicians tried asking _why_ she decided to try using the device, but her steely glare made them back down. Only her mother's question about the subject made her respond at all. "Wouldn't you?" she asked succinctly.

At last, after all the poking and prodding was done, she was released into the afternoon sunlight where her family awaited. Monique was with them, and bounced into Kim's arms the second her redheaded friend strode out of the Middleton Constructorium.

"Kim!" she squealed. "You are lookin' _good_, girl! Time travel must agree with you." Kim didn't think she looked good at all, she felt particularly bedraggled after hours of intense interrogation and physical testing. But she appreciated her friend's enthusiasm. The two ancient girls chatted like they were back in high school, much to the amusement of Kim's parents and siblings, who accompanied them back to Kim's house.

Shego was sitting inside, looking out the picture frame window. Dressed in a simple skirt and blouse, she resembled not at all the villainess that Monique was accustomed to seeing. Her eyes tracked the group as they entered Kim's door, but her expression remained passive. Monique stopped dead when she spotted Shego.

"What's _she_ doing here?"

"It's a long story," Kim told her friend. She looked at Shego. "You OK?" The melancholy expression on Shego's face shifted slightly, to what might be the start of a smile. It didn't last long, but Shego haltingly nodded. She resumed staring out the large window.

Kim took Monique's hand and pulled her friend into her house. Kim was still exploring her own home, finding more and more delights. Monique was far more familiar with Kim's house than Kim herself, ignored almost everything and flung herself onto a couch.

"Tell all. Spill it, girl. I want dirty details, especially about Ron. Make it juicy, even if you have to make it up."

Kim talked with her friend deep into the evening, long after everyone else had retired, including silent Shego. They compared timelines, and Monique listened to Kim tell her about Monique's house in Seattle. It turned out to be not so different from her house in Middleton, a few miles from Kim's. When Kim got to the part about Project Phoebus, Monique quizzed her on what she intended to do with enhanced brainpower.

Sighing, Kim said, "I don't really know. I thought if everything went wrong, I could make myself smart enough to solve the problems I couldn't solve at Dementor's. Maybe come up with a way to solve the sterility issue. Or fix the starship drives. Or something, I don't know. But so far, zilch. To quote a certain long-distance lover: 'Nothing but air beneath the hair.'"

Monique laughed. "Right. You're not that bad off. Heck, you're nearly as smart as I am." Both girls laughed. "Let's test with a pop quiz: what's the sine of 52,169?"

"Minus point two eight three six five six nine," Kim replied promptly. Both girls dropped their jaws.

"Ohmygosh, it's working!" Monique cried. "Quick, tell me something smart!"

Kim, wide-eyed, did a quick lookup of what she had downloaded in her memory. "Um, the ramjet fuel equation they used to separate interstellar hydrogen from other matter looks like it has a small error, and I see a couple of other things they can fix, too... wow..." Kim stared at equations, schematics, mountains of text that flicked by her optical nerve input at lightning speed. And understood it all.

"I've got to get busy," she told her friend, bounding up. "I need some help. Come with me?"

Monique was by Kim's side in an instant. "Lead on, I'm with you all the way."

They ran through starlight and reached the constructorium in a few minutes. There was no need to lock the building, so the two girls rushed in, turned on the lights, and began organizing.

"What are you going to build?"

Kim looked up from a list of materials. "I'm not sure. But I've got some ideas. Bear with me." She placed her hands on a golden sphere, which sped up data transfers a thousandfold. Kim spent several minutes, eyes rolled up in her head, and finally exclaimed "Yes! That'll work." She started reeling off material requests, which Monique frantically started calling up through the local interface. Materials not stored locally were requested as priority items from other constructoriums, scheduled for rush shipment. Kim's status bumped up the priority, and soon diverse items were streaming toward Middleton on the world's small fleet of automated transports.

Other people, who discovered Kim's efforts, began staggering in before dawn. She put them to work fetching, fabricating, and constructing... something. She refused to detail what it was they were building, but since it was Kim Possible in charge, people obeyed.

Soon after sunrise, Kim's parents and brothers showed up, curious as to what their daughter was up to. They found her with hands still locked onto the transfer sphere, furiously sending and receiving data. The tweebs looked over her shoulder and snuck a touch of the sphere. It only lasted a second, but the twins' eyes widened.

"Wow."

"Ambitious."

"She'll need our help."

"Right."

"Gotta go!" the boys chorused, and sped out of the building before anyone could think to stop them.

As the morning wore on, Kim's eyes started sliding shut, but she snapped them open with fierce concentration whenever they threatened to close. Her time with Project Phoebus was limited. Finally, though, her parents found her slumped over the date transfer sphere, sound asleep. They gently laid her down for a nap.

When she awoke a few hours before sunset, there was panic in Kim's eyes. "I need to finish!" she cried, scrambling back to the main chamber deep inside the constructorium. When she arrived, the work was nearly complete. Despite having pieced the object together, nobody but Kim really knew what it was, what it was supposed to do.

A teardrop-shaped chrome structure, about four meters tall by two meters wide, rested on a cradle in the center of the large room. A circular hole about a meter in diameter opened near the bottom, large enough so somebody could crawl in. Kim approached her brainchild, looked in at the nearly-completed object, and nodded in satisfaction.

"We'll be finished in just a few minutes," one of the burly constructorium workers told her. "Mind telling us what it is?"

"You'll see," she said, to the obvious disappointment of all. Kim whispered to Monique, who looked surprised, nodded, and walked briskly to an exit. Finding a data transfer sphere, Kim settled down and continued her work. Small plaques, each embedded with thousands of pages worth of information and drawings, were delivered to her at regular intervals, until a small stack was gathered at her side.

Several technicians stood on the sidelines and took bets to see who could name what the object was. Heavy bets were placed on "sterility reverser" but "starship repair" was a close runner up.

Nearing sunset, Kim's mother walked up to her. "Honey, don't you think you need to take a break?" Her concern was obvious.

Kim shook her head, disentangled herself from the data flowing to and from the huge repository in the constructorium. "I'm losing it, I can feel it going. I'm almost done, but I've just got to get this finished before it all wears off." She grabbed her mother's hand. "Please."

Reluctantly, her mother nodded, then said, "I understand. But first, somebody needs to talk to you." She beckoned for somebody standing behind Kim to come around.

Kim brushed a lock of red hair back impatiently, wanting to get back to work before her knowledge deserted her. But as Shego walked up to her, Kim's annoyance subsided.

The raven-haired woman looked more in control of herself, more poised. The blank look in her eyes had faded, and Shego looked around with curiosity, then at Kim. There was no hostility or sarcasm in her face, and her voice was even and sincere when she spoke.

"Thank you."

Kim looked back at the woman who had been her arch-enemy, and had been reviled by the world for millennia. "You're welcome." She took Shego's hand for a moment, and let go.

Shego turned away, then faced Kim again for a moment. "I'll be leaving tomorrow, my house needs some work. Some people offered to help me fix it."

"I'm glad. Call me if you need help."

Shego smiled for the first time since Kim spotted her sitting listlessly in front of her dilapidated cabin. "I will." She turned, her raven hair flowing silky once more, and left Kim to her work.

Kim turned back and wrapped up her final tasks. As she disengaged from the constructorium's nerve center, she heard approaching footsteps. The construction foreman, who had taken over from some of Kim's friends earlier in the day, presented his report. "We're all ready, even if we have no clue what it's supposed to be. Would you like to inspect the... thing?"

Smiling, Kim agreed and walked across the large, mostly empty space to where her creation lay. Fully chromed, the tall teardrop reflected the interior of the constructorium in a funhouse mirror fashion. The portal inside was dimly lit, and Kim peered in to check the interior. It was exactly as she'd specified. Touching the surface, she ran a diagnostic through the object's sophisticated computers, and she checked and double-checked all the systems. Even with her artificial intelligence wavering, Kim was confident all was in order.

Except for one thing. She had a feeling she knew how to solve her final dilemma...

"Where are Jim and Tim?"

Startled, her father looked around. "They took off earlier. Haven't seen them since, probably off getting into trouble somewhere." As he finished, two pairs of running feet could be heard barrelling through the hallways and into the construction bay.

"Right on time," Kim smiled. She knew her brothers very well indeed.

"Kim, you're gonna need..."

"... a special top-secret ingredient..."

"... to finish your project!" the twins alternated speaking in their eerie way.

Behind them, a four-wheeled automatic cargo hauler lumbered in, its large payload area looking even larger by the small chest placed in the middle. The chest was adorned with wires and what looked like hand-made circuitry.

"I knew I could count on you two," Kim said, ruffling their hair. "You sure it's safe and stable?"

The twins looked insulted. "Hey, who're the geniuses around here? The twenty-four seven ones, not the nine-to-five one?"

The crawler nestled up to the teardrop. Kim extended her hand, touched the teardrop, and ordered a panel to open near the narrow top. She then ordered the cargo crawler to extend the payload area to the top. The chest fit into the cavity with room to spare, and the teardrop's access hatch sealed, leaving no seam.

Kim's father asked the twins, "What's in the box, boys?"

"Neutronium!" the chorused.

"I thought you were told not to play with that any more!" their father began, but Kim waved him down.

"It's OK, Dad, I needed it."

Hardly mollified by the danger his children had put the planet in, the rocket scientist huffed and looked like he wanted to chastise someone. But his natural curiosity took over, and he asked, "How much neutronium?"

"Sixteen and a half cubic centiliters," Jim told his father.

"And that weighs..."

"About fourteen billion tons!" Tim enthused. "It's gravitically shielded, our own design."

The Possible paterfamilias looked up at the gleaming teardrop, and asked his daughter, "Will that be able to handle the neutronium? It's very dangerous."

"No prob, Dad. It should be just about enough."

While the final checks on Kim's device were made, she went back and put all the data plaques in a backpack. Monique arrived with another sack, which she handed to Kim, who then stowed both inside the teardrop.

"We need to move this outside for it to work properly," she told everybody. Several burly technicians pushed the teardrop, gravitically stabilized, onto the cargo crawler, which then brought the nearly four-meter tall object through a pair of large clamshell doors and out into the twilight.

A crowd gathered around Kim's construction, eager to see what she'd created. Whispers passed from person to person, each adding their own embellishment to the previous. Kim's parents watched anxiously, worried for their daughter, but also wanting to see what her temporary genius had produced.

Kim didn't keep them waiting long. She hugged her family and Monique, and briskly stepped up to the meter-wide hole and slithered up into the softly lit interior. It was just large enough for one person comfortably, or two people if they weren't claustrophobic. The interior was lined with data readouts, and was padded at an angle, so the person or people inside could recline somewhat. One sack and one backpack were propped in a small alcove.

Kim looked down through the knee-high portal and leaned out. Her family stood watching her, trepidatious, but proud. Kim felt pangs at cutting herself off from them, even if only for a short while; she'd just found them again. But this was important.

Straightening up, Kim touched a panel and a doorway irised into place, sealing her inside. A few more touches of her finger, and the program was set and running.

Outside, Kim's parents watched their daughter's starship silently rise into the sky, where stars were just starting to peek through the deep blue night.

* * *

Ron looked up at the bright alien sky. As usual, there were no rainclouds, and the dry air was harsh with dust. His shift at the agricenter was over, and he was readying himself to head home for some dreamless sleep, yet another long night on Outland. Turning back, he was about to go back inside when a commotion near the center of the planet's sole settlement caught his attention. Others were looking up into the yellowish sky and pointing. Ron followed their fingers and saw something that he couldn't quite focus on, something that reflected the ground and sky...

It continued descending and then stopped about a meter from the group, perhaps a hundred meters north of the agricenter. Ron, curiosity piqued by the unique craft that had just landed, loped toward it, along with most of the rest of the settlers who'd seen it land.

As he drew up to the odd chrome teardrop, a hole appeared near the bottom and a pair of shapely legs emerged. The legs were followed by a narrow waist, feminine chest and shoulders, and a cascade of red hair. Ron stood transfixed, not daring to hope, not even daring to breathe for fear of shattering the dream, waiting for the woman's face to appear.

Kim Possible's feet landed on Outland and she scanned the silent, scruffy crowd. Her gaze lit on one man in particular, and she walked slowly toward him, backpack swung off one arm. She stopped a foot away and everyone swiveled to watch what happened.

She lifted a hand and gently touched his sun-roughened cheek. "It's time to come home, Ron." Ron reached up, touched her hand, and gripped it, not willing to let go. Half fearing he was hallucinating, Ron let Kim kiss him gently. She backed away and pulled him toward the teardrop.

As if coming out of a dream, Ron stumbled, then disengaged himself from the freshly arrived redhead. He held up a finger, called "Wait!" to her, and rushed back to the agricenter. Kim, shocked, found her mind churning... he was with another woman, he detested her in this timeline for letting him leave, she couldn't tell why he ran away. She stood there for moments, unsure of what to do, but Ron emerged back into the bright sunlight before anybody else moved.

Ron trotted back to her, and took something out of his pocket. The small animal was pinkish, tinged with yellow, and if Kim squinted, she could see the resemblance to a naked mole rat... She smiled, and grabbed his other hand. This time, Ron didn't pull away, but willingly followed her.

One of the men in the crowd, seeing Kim and Ron approach the chrome starship, stepped up. "What's this about? Where are you from? How did you...?"

Kim stopped in front of the flustered man and handed him a backpack. "This contains instructions on how to fix your starship, and generate more fuel," she told him. "I figured you didn't want to wait another 300 years for it to come by radio."

She brushed past the mute man and crawled into the ship. Ron followed, squeezing into the narrow space. It wasn't claustrophobic, not with his other half occupying the space with him. Kim touched a few controls, the door irised shut, and once more the teardrop rose into the sky.

* * *

"... and that's when I built the ship to come get you," she finished telling Ron on the short journey through hyperspace. "I only had enough fuel and neutronium for one round trip, and for one small ship. Hope you don't mind the close quarters." Ron demonstrated - again - that he most certainly did not mind being squeezed into a small space with Kim.

"So you couldn't solve the sterility problem, but you could build a faster-than-light starship?" Ron was still trying to wrap his mind around all the fantastic things Kim had told him. Even her data bursts would take some time to digest.

"Yep."

"Badical." The couple spent more time getting reaquainted.

A short nap and brief snack later, Kim and Ron were refreshed as the ship emerged from hyperspace above the blue planet of Earth. Its pristine outline shone like a crystal sphere in the backdrop of the night. Kim guided it down, down to the terminator line near Middleton, and dropped to a gentle landing in a small clearing near her house. Although it was still before dawn, people streamed out to meet them once they heard on the netcast that Kim's vessel was back. Kim was tired, but happier than she'd been in a long time.

Ron stepped out first, drinking in the cool pre-dawn air, the moist freshness of the day. It was a dramatic change from the arid planet he'd spent much of his life trying to tame. His girlfriend emerged just behind him as the first people reached them.

Monique darted through the growing crowd, and grabbed Ron in a tight bearhug. He hugged back gingerly, hardly able to breathe. She turned to Kim, and said, "OK, points for a grand entrance. But we've got some other news, too." She chuckled at Kim's inquisitive look, and just said, "You'll see." Turnabout was apparently fair play.

The group ambled toward Kim's house by fading starlight, Monique in the lead. By the time they'd gotten to the front door, the crowd had spread out, forming a semicircle around Kim, Ron, Monique, and the front of her house. Monique came up behind Kim and covered her eyes. "Better prepare yourself for a shock," she told the confused redhead.

Sounds of the door opening and closing, and Monique's hands dropped from Kim's face. Bonnie and Brick were standing on the porch, looking shaky. Bonnie appeared looking for something suitably snide to say to Kim, but for once was at a loss for words, as was Kim.

"Wha...?"

Monique grinned so large Kim thought she'd hurt herself. "After your debrief, the nerds searched all records and found that our little friends," she gestured toward the two blinking teens, "had been put into a holding facility after Bonnie put on the stasis cuffs. The tech was too advanced, and they didn't want to hurt them. So they were shoved into a corner, and then another corner, and then another, until they were almost completely forgotten. Until we knew to look for them, that is."

Kim was astonished. "Did it work, then? Can they...?"

"Yep! The tests were normal." Monique turned to Bonnie and her boyfriend. "May I introduce Adam and Eve!" She turned back to Kim, ignoring the look on Bonnie's face. "They're mortal, and completely able to have children. They may not be my first choices as parents of the year, but girl, there _will_ be children again!" Her fierce grin was soon echoed by Kim.

"What **are** you losers talking about? Why are we here, and what the hell is going on? Somebody better answer me or I'm calling the cops! Brick, tell them!"

The blond quarterback looked around, then at his fuming girlfriend. "I'm gonna miss practice. Coach is gonna kill me."

Kim's mother, who had come out during this exchange, took Bonnie aside and tried to explain things while Monique shooed the crowd away. A confused few minutes passed, and Kim and Ron found themselves no longer at the center of attention. Already, Bonnie could be heard whining. "But I don't _want_ to have children, I want to be _immortal_ like everyone else! Why do **I** get stuck being the only one not to get to live forever? It's not _fair_!" No amount of reassurances that Bonnie was the future of the human race seemed to penetrate the focused girl.

Brick, on the other hand, simply said, "Cool."

Kim and Ron walked a short way from the impromptu conference in Kim's front yard and waited for the sun to rise over Middleton. They held hands, never letting the other out of reach.

"Think Bonnie'll ever come around and accept her fate?" Ron asked casually as Kim snuggled next to him.

The redhead sighed, completely content. "It doesn't really matter. She'll deal with it, one way or another."

Ron snickered. "I never thought I'd depend on Bonnie to hold mankind together."

Kim smiled. "True. And she's important. Her descendents will take over from us someday." She gestured out at the pristine world before them. "But don't forget who'll be there keeping her kids and their kids on the straight and narrow, long after Bonnie's gone."

"Ooh. That's gotta chafe."

"I sincerely hope so." Kim gripped Ron's waist tightly and watched the stars fade into a brilliant sunrise.

_The End_


	8. Author Notes and Plotline

_**Author's Notes:** I've always been intrigued with how stories go together... are they planned that way? Written off the cuff, like Hitchhiker's Guide? How closely did they stick to the initial plan? What changed during the writing process? Maybe I'm just a word nerd, but in the hopes that somebody else finds this useful, below is the original plot synopsis for all chapters after chapter 1._

_The first chapter was written as a standalone story, which I think works quite well. But after receiving such positive feedback, I decided to expand it, and came up with the extended plot, which I jotted down and passed by a couple of people. In the original version, Ron was an object, a wallflower, and didn't do anything; so he became more proactive, especially in the confrontation with Dementor and Shego. That in itself became more of a plot for Kim, although not deeply explored: she'd been missing Ron, but not necessarily for everything about him, she still treated him as somebody to protect, and not as an integral part of the team._

_Some other things of note about the story..._

_The thought that a few people, who live a long time, are caretakers of an empty world has always been fascinating to me. This is the first iteration of a theme that will probably be expanded, if I am fortunate enough to continue writing._

_The starship Kim builds was inspired by David Brin's award-winning "Crystal Spheres" short story, which also deals with humans in the far future (although his is far better written than mine). You may notice that story's name in Chapter 7._

_Chapter 4 was split into two chapters, since it became far too long for a single chapter._

_A lot of the Dementor's lair scenes were shifted from the original idea, as new thoughts kept popping up about what was most in character for each person, and what made more sense, plot-wise._

_This story is now complete, I don't anticipate any further plots at this time. But there's a lot more room in the SG-1 / KP crossover universe of my other story..._

_I've seen some comments that the ending was rushed, or tacked on, which I can see. However, that's always been the way it's been intended to read; if anything, the final two scenes are a bit long for what I originally intended. The story's really about Kim, not really Ron and Kim. _

_I wanted to get the story done by Christmas, and barely made it. It turned out to be about twice as long as I'd originally envisioned._

_I hope you enjoy this little tale._

_- Binkmeister _

**KP Eternal continuation plot**

**Chapter 2**

Kim and Monique journey down Mt. Middleton, Kim really seeing the world around her for the first time in a long time. They discuss Monique's life in Seattle, or what was Seattle. We also talk about how empty the world is, how it's almost better empty, since there was not enough resources to go around and civilization would've collapsed soon anyway. They also talk about the weather weirdness after the anagathic spray was released - small ice ages and drought.

We find out a bit about the biotech - neural net/wetware - in everybody's bodies.

During the trek, the sky opens and it pours buckets, drenching them. After a while, they get to a small log house that's been flooded, and they help the inhabitants, who view Kim with suspicion. She's used to it. Mystery: why is Kim needed but unwelcome? In Middleton, we find out Kim needs to go to one of the few remaining urban centers (Seattle) to do her "Feelie" recording. They take three weeks to walk there, and then find out once they've arrived that Ron's colony included instructions on a way to send a person back in time.

Nearly the entire population of earth (minus Kim and Monique) have been discussing whether they should send Kim back to stop Dementor. She's obviously the only one who could stop it. At the very end of the chapter, we find that Kim was sort of responsible for Dementor's "gift" - she chose to save Ron from death rather than stop Dementor, and the world is offering her a chance to make it right. But Kim isn't sure she wants to.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

This chapter discusses the ethical ramifications of changing time - the results, whether or not Kim wants to go, etc.

Even though most people died shortly afterward (relatively speaking), they did enjoy longer life and prosperity for the duration of their lives, but at the cost of a racial imperative to go forth and procreate. Is it OK for Kim to change that? Things turned out OK in the end, didn't they? In other words, would it help or hurt to change things so Dementor didn't release his spray?

In the end, the world decides to send her - by a narrow margin. Kim herself waffles on it, and has doubts about the wisdom of taking on this mission. But she has personal reasons to go - namely, to see Ron. Unfortunately, the window is only 52 hours long and she must come back after that time, no matter what. If she succeeds, there's no telling what she'll find on her return.

Kim is outfitted with a replica of her mission outfit and some goodies, including a Kimmunicator that is more than it seems. She is briefed (using sketchy historical documentation) on where to be and how to foil Dementor, and given a rough inventory of his lair at the time, including bondo-balls, lightning generators, the transportulator, assorted villanous odds and ends. She can't just go waaaay back before, it has to be at the cusp point within the window of her visit. So she can't dawdle. She's instructed to leave Ron behind so she doesn't get distracted this time.

If the plan works, the future world will be a very different place, but future (immortal) Kim will show back up there, no Ron, to see what's happened in 50,000 years. If it's the wrong thing to do, there's no way to un-undo it. She may be stuck by herself if the human race didn't make it.

And nobody can think of anything to help bring the colonists back to earth, which is kind of a moot point anyway. Future Ron is SoL.

On the way out, one white coat guy drags Kim aside and gives her some things... namely, a pair of arm cuffs and two drug injectors. If it looks like things are going to go wahooni-shaped, she is to find a likely-looking male and female and drug 'em up and slap the armbands on them, and stow them somewhere safe for several tens of thousands of years. The drug will keep them protected from the anagathic spray, and the armbands will keep them in stasis and young. They'll be mortal, but be able to have children. The rest of the world's population discussed and dismissed giving these to Kim, since they could be considered an easy way out. It's not optimal.

Kim also gets an idea and without telling anyone, accesses all the technical specs of starship theory and design and application, and stores them in her internal neural wetware.

All the while, Kim tries to think of ways of saving or being with Ron as much as possible. She's kind of obsessed about it.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Kim is transported back in time to her senior year in high school. She's sitting in class as she pops in. Ron is in another class. She's disoriented and gets some amusing comments from Barkin and Bonnie.

Much of the first part of the chapter is Kim's reaction to her old life, how shallow it seems in comparison to what she's lived through, but also how important every detail is, that she would remember it for thousands of years.

First things first - find Ron and give him the humdinger of all smooches in the middle of school. He's incredibly embarrassed, but not unappreciative. Barkin breaks them up, she clings to Ron, he's confused but not especially concerned.

They have a day to waste until Dementor does his thing. Kim vacillates on whether or not to do the deed, to thwart Dementor. The surroundings, long vanished in her time, bring back potent memories. Her odd, wide-eyed behavior is noticed by many, including the tweebs when she hugs them, and her mom and dad when she cries upon seeing them - they'd been dead in her time for a long while, and she feels responsible even though she couldn't have saved them.

She tells the tweebs not to play with neutronium. They're puzzled, but she's adamant.

She has some gaffes, such as answering rhetorical questions about what happens in the future in an absentminded way. Like who is president next.

Her dichotomy grows as the deadline approaches to defeat Dementor. The world is so much more vivid and alive and hopeful than she's used to - they have things to look forward to, even if it will likely be a much shorter future. Mankind has a slim chance of surving even a thousand years, with the mess they've made of their planet. Accidental yet drastic winnowing saved the race, but at the cost of perhaps its driving force - its children. Even though she can't save Ron in the past or the future, his opinion matters; but when asked, he can't answer the big question, and gets concerned Kim is dying when she talks about choosing a short, eventful life or a long, depressing existence.

Kim's mind is made up when she sees children playing, and parents watching them. She remembers back to her pre-K days with Ron, and decides people need something to look forward to; they need children, a future.

On the way to stop Dementor, she stops by Middleton High to get her backpack of supplies, and sees Bonnie and Brick having an argument about him being off to college; they accuse each other of acting like children, and get in Kim's face, delaying her. Almost on a whim, more to get rid of them so she can go, Kim slaps the armbands on them and drugs 'em up, stashing them in a storeroom and saying she'll be back to get them later.

Ron wants to come on the mission and doesn't understand why Kim is reluctant. She finally tricks him into a classroom and uses a laser pen to weld the door shut, for his own good (from her point of view). She doesn't want him to get in the way. Ron, however, uses his cell phone to call Wade, who has a GJ jet standing by to let Ron follow Kim.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Unbeknownst to her, Shego is also shadowing her - unlike last time - since Kim has been acting funny, and Drakken wants to see if Kim is in cahoots with Dementor. Kim has a timeframe she needs to meet, just a few hours after her confrontation with Dementor, and she keeps checking the time.

Kim finds Dementor on the winding road outside his Mediterranean lair and despite her misgivings, tries to defeat him without releasing the anagathic spray this time. She has a neutralizing agent in her backpack, but it only works on the liquid concentrate and from very close range, and takes several seconds of stillness. But before she can wrest the potion away from Dementor, Shego attacks, trying to steal whatever Kim and Dementor are fighting over (the concentrated formula in a sealed glass bottle). Kim uses some of her future tricks, like projecting a hologram and speeding herself up, to foil Shego. Unfortunately Dementor gets free with the bottle, and then Shego snatches the bottle from Dementor but it slips and breaks on the ground, releasing its powerful effects to the ocean breeze. Kim has failed to change the future.

Dementor wails about his potion being spoiled, immortality was to be all his. Enraged, he shoves Shego nearly off the parapet they're standing on. Turning to Kim laying on the ground, he takes out a lethal little device and is about to toast her when he looks up just in time to get Ron's boots in his face. Ron parachuted from the GJ jet and saved Kim. Unfortunately, the anagathic mist swirls around and he's already inhaled it.

Kim finally remembers that far from being an annoyance, somebody to protect, Ron is not only her love but her full partner. The long centuries without him have made her forget how integral he is to everything she is and does. She begs him to forgive her, although he thinks she's just asking to be forgiven for leaving him locked at school.

With henchmen closing in, and Shego clawing her way up onto the road, Kim and Ron storm Dementor's lair. The time transport window had cut it close... she has less than an hour to get her extra duty taken care of, the one she didn't tell anyone about. She calls Wade and asks him to get the phone number for the top-secret Iowa base where Project Phoebus is stored. Finding the transportulator after fighting their way past the henchmen, she dials it and they're transported instantly to Iowa. Kim tells the General she desperately needs access to Project Phoebus, "just to make sure it's safe," and he grants it reluctantly. Once in the room, she has Ron turn it on. She gives him a big kiss, tells him she loves him, and dives under the headgear. The effect lasts only a few seconds, and just after it goes off, she's yanked back to the future as Ron watches helplessly.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

Kim reappears in Seattle, waking up in a bed. She looks up and her mom and dad are there. She thinks she's still in the past, but it looks like her talking to the tweebs about neutronium not being a toy saved them, and therefore the parents Possible as well. Kim breaks into tears and hugs them all. Thinking maybe her talk with Ron had made him stay, she's bitterly disappointed to find out that situation hasn't changed... he's still stuck on Outland. She's debriefed, and spills all about Shego, Dementor, even Brick and Bonnie - but she doesn't mention her stint with Project Phoebus.

Getting up, Kim is surprised to see Shego, who had fallen long before in her previous timeline. Shego is a bit insane, and people avoid her. Kim discovers that people no longer shun her, but rather avoid Shego, who is blamed for Dementor's spilling the anagathic spray.

At first she thinks project Phoebus is a bust, no enhanced brain activity. But after a bit of roaming with Monique, she starts to get flashes, and looks at the starship specs she'd downloaded. She understands them, and sees where they were flawed. But using them as a starting point, she designs a new type of FTL ship in a day, driving herself to exhaustion. The Seattle construction center is able to produce it, but there's one thing missing: neutronium cores. The tweebs exchange guilty looks, and provide enough to make the ship work for one round-trip ticket.

The ship is teardrop-shaped and about twice as big as a phone booth. Kim steps in, triggers it, and it disappears.

Cut to Outland, where Ron is emerging from a building, looking worn, dusty and thirsty. He looks at the sky, when a strange teardrop descends, opens, and out steps Kim. They hug, Kim tugs Ron toward the ship, but he holds back... Kim thinks he's got somebody else. He holds up a finger, dashes back in, and Kim expects him to bring out a woman. Instead, he comes out with a strange little pinkish animal vaguely reminiscent of a naked mole rat, but not quite. Putting it into his overall pocket, he goes with Kim to the teardrop ship. A group gathers; Kim hands one person a folder of paper, which has instructions on how to fix the ship and generate fuel using equipment the colony has available. They'll be able to get home; it'll take a couple of thousand years, but they'll be able to get back.

Kim and Ron drop down through Earth's atmosphere and get out in Middleton. They step out, looking at the brand new day, the bright sunshine, and Kim remarks the only thing that would make it better would be children. The world looks empty and fresh and ready for something, anything. Monique greets K&R as they are looking over the valley of Middleton, and tells them she has a surprise. They follow her down to a small wooden house. There are two beds there; in one is Bonnie, looking disoriented, and Brick is in the other, looking out of it as usual. They had been put into a hospital after they were found millenia ago, and basically forgotten until Kim came back from the past. Discovered, they were weaned off the stasis cuffs and found to be able to have children.

Bonnie and Brick are told they will be Adam and Eve; Bonnie bitches about being mortal, she doesn't want to belt out kid after kid, she'd rather be immortal like Kim. Brick's cool with it. They ask where they'll live, and Kim opens the door and shows them an empty world.

Bonnie's children would inherit the earth, but Kim and Ron would be there every step, hand in hand, to guide their descendents. And help them, of course. It's what they do.


End file.
